16 Sep 2013, 12:09

A man was previously a client of a recruitment agency. One of the agency’s services was to provide an online profile for the man. 

The profile contained extensive information about him, including his name, photo, physical description, qualifications and personal interests.

After a period of time, the man advised the agency he no longer wanted to use its services, and asked to have his profile removed.

The agency removed his name and photo from the online profile, and removed the link to his profile from its website.  However, the rest of the profile was left online.

The man later found that the edited profile was available in Google when he searched his name.

The man raised concerns with us that his personal information was still being used by the agency.

Our investigation

The complaint raised issues about retention and use of information.  In particular, principle 9 states that an agency must not keep information for longer than is required for the purposes for which the information may lawfully be used.

Although the man’s name had been removed from the profile, we were satisfied that it could still be considered to be personal information that identified him.

This was because of the detailed information retained on the profile, and because it was still being linked to him through Google’s search engine.

On this basis we contacted the recruitment agency to let it know we had concerns this information was still available online, even though the man was no longer a client.

The agency accepted our view and, as a result, completely removed the profile from its website.

The man was satisfied with this outcome and his complaint was closed on this basis.

September 2013

Retention of personal information ─ online profile ─ recruitment agency ─ former client ─ no longer any reason to retain information ─  Privacy Act 1993, principle 9