1 Feb 2011, 09:00

A man had an unlisted telephone number for personal safety reasons. He moved house and contacted his telecommunications company to give it his new address details, and to arrange for a new telephone number.

During this process the telecommunications company employee failed to transfer the confidential status of the man's old telephone number. As a result, the new telephone number was published in a publicly available online directory.

The man complained about this to the telecommunications company, but was not satisfied with its response. He subsequently complained to us.

This complaint raised issues under the Telecommunications Information Privacy Code 2003 ('the Code'), in particular Schedule 1. Schedule 1 sets out how complaints must be handled by the telecommunications company. In our view, the man's complaint had not been handled in accordance with Schedule 1 by the telecommunications company.

The telecommunications company accepted that it had made mistakes with the man's telecommunications information. It agreed to amend its processes so that when customers with confidential numbers moved house or changed telephone numbers, the confidential status of their telephone number would remain. The company apologised to the man for the distress caused by listing his number in a public directory.

Although the telecommunications company accepted that its complaint handling processes needed improvement, it did not accept that its actions here had breached the Code, because the man had not specifically referred to the Code when he made his initial complaint. The telecommunications company's view was that because the man had not done this, the Code did not apply, and the company could not be found to be in breach of it.

We disagreed with this interpretation, and advised the company that, in our view, it was not necessary for a complainant to refer specifically to the Code in order for them to exercise rights under the Code. In our view, the telecommunications company was responsible for identifying when a someone was raising an issue under the Code regardless of the language used. The company must then follow the appropriate procedure set out in Schedule 1 when dealing with that complaint.

We decided not to take any further action in respect of this complaint because the man was satisfied with the outcome. However we advised the telecommunications company that if it maintained its view that Schedule 1 of the Code only applied if a complainant referred to it, then it ran the risk of interfering with that complainant's privacy.

December 2011

Disclosure of telecommunications information - publishing confidential telephone number - telecommunications company - Telecommunications Information Privacy Code 2003; Schedule 1