The complainant alleged that a rumour was started that she was leaving her job at a government department by management staff disclosing information about her employment to non-management staff. The complainant asked me to investigate what she felt to be an interference with her privacy.

Information privacy principle 5 requires the department to take reasonable security safeguards to protect personal information against unauthorised disclosure. To determine whether IPP 5 had been breached I asked the department to respond to the complaint. The department acknowledged that a conversation between a manager and a supervisor was overheard to the effect that the complainant would be leaving on a particular date but maintained that this was not the origin of the rumour.

I was of the opinion that it was not possible to establish with any certainty the origin of the rumours, therefore I confined my opinion to the overhearing of the conversation. It was possible to find that the department did not on this occasion take reasonable safeguards to protect personal information from unauthorised disclosure. However, I took the view that the nature of the information that was disclosed during this incident was information other staff members were entitled to know. Managers need to inform staff members when an employee is leaving as it may have implications for the workload of other staff.

It was regrettable that information had been disclosed in this manner but the department had apologised and had installed a private office for supervisors as a safeguard against future disclosures. I concluded that IPP 5 had not been breached as the employer was entitled to disclose the information and so stringent security safeguards were not required.

November 1994

Storage and security - Employer - Discussion about employee was overheard - Stringent security safeguards not required - Information privacy principle 5