10 May 2019, 09:00

A pawn shop contacted a woman’s employer about an unresolved debt and disclosed information about the debt, as well as making allegations about the woman’s integrity and honesty.

The woman had exchanged a mobile phone and other items for cash at a pawn shop because she was going through a period of financial hardship.

Some weeks later, she went to the pawn shop to pay off the amount owed on the phone and retrieve it. The shop assistant referred to the contract the woman had brought with her and told her the amount she had to pay. She paid, retrieved her phone and went to work. Soon afterwards, the shop assistant rang to tell her he had incorrectly charged her and a few hundred dollars were still owed. A few days later, the shop assistant went to the woman’s workplace to pursue the amount and had to be urged to leave the premises.

The woman said she received emails from shop assistant and the pawn shop owner asking for more money or to return the phone. When the woman rang the pawn shop owner to discuss his assistant’s error, the owner reportedly threatened to go after the woman through her employer and get compensated that way.

The owner then complained to her employer via an online enquiry portal on the employer’s website and disclosed considerable personal information about the woman and the incident. He detailed that she owed money, was a dishonest person, and included a full description of all her transactions with the pawn shop.

The complaint

The woman said her reputation had been damaged by the disclosure and she felt humiliated. She complained to our office.

The complaint raised issues under principles 10 and 11 of the Privacy Act. Principle 10 says an agency should not use information for purposes other than that which it collected the information for. Principle 11 says an agency holding personal information should not disclose it unless at the time of the disclosure, it reasonably believed one of the exceptions to principle 11 applied.

Respondent’s view

We contacted the owner who referred us to his lawyer. The lawyer said that by not paying the full amount owed, the woman’s actions amounted to criminal conduct.

Additionally, the lawyer argued that the shop owner was justified in using the woman’s work details to contact her employer. The shop had collected information about her employer as part of the woman’s contractual requirement with the shop and it had “express or implied consent” to use these details to contact her employer about the unresolved debt.

The lawyer justified the shop’s use of the online enquiry form to contact her employer because the woman had chosen to limit the information provided about her employer, and the online form was the only means of written contact the pawn shop had with the business she worked for.

The lawyer also said the purpose and content of the shop’s disclosure to her employer was to expose the woman’s “wrongdoing”. He suggested that the woman was trading on her employer’s name and good reputation when entering into a contract with the pawn shop.

He said it was not appropriate for our office to make a finding of harm in circumstances where a complainant had benefited from wrongdoing. We should decline the woman’s complaint on the basis that it had not been made in good faith.

Our view

We accepted the woman had been made reasonably aware that her employer might be contacted in order to reach her. We also accepted that providing her employer’s contact details amounted to implied consent for the pawn shop to use those details to get in touch with her. The issue here was the purpose, extent and method of disclosure. The woman’s consent clearly did not extend to allowing the detailed disclosure that the shop ultimately made.

We also said using the employer’s online enquiry form to contact the woman was clearly not the only way of making written contact with the employer. The employer’s website enabled anyone to obtain the postal address, fax number and phone number of any of the branches. Any of these would have been more appropriate than a message broadcast as widely as a national general enquiry portal.

We did not agree that the woman was trading on her employer’s name and good reputation when entering into a contract with the pawn shop. From our perspective the woman appeared to be acting in a personal capacity.

We were also of the view the level of disclosure – the dates, amounts and even the woman’s driver’s licence – was excessive, not justified and exceeded the purpose for which information was collected from the woman (principle 10).

Harm

We were satisfied the woman had experienced harm as a result of the disclosure made to an unknown number of colleagues and managers at the organisation that employed her.

With regards to an interference of principle 11 (the disclosure principle), the level of harm to an individual must meet the level required in section 66(1)(b) of the Act. This section requires that the action complained about:

1. has caused loss, detriment, damage or injury to that individual; or
2. has adversely affected the rights, benefits, privileges, obligations, or interests of that individual; or
3. has resulted in significant humiliation, significant loss of dignity, or significant injury to the feelings of that individual.

We were satisfied the woman suffered anxiety and stress as a result of the disclosure made by the pawn shop. The harm experienced stems from having her financial affairs broadcast in a poorly controlled way to her employer and colleagues. On top of that, the content of the disclosure went far beyond what was necessary for the pawn shop to pursue the debt. The woman had described her feelings of anxiety and humiliation at having staff at work know about her relationship with the pawn shop and not knowing how widely that information had been disclosed.

In our view, the woman’s harm met the threshold set out in section 66(1)(b)(iii). We concluded the pawn shop had breached principle 11 and had interfered with her privacy.

Conclusion

In an effort to resolve the complaint, the pawn shop offered to make a formal apology, to make procedural changes to prevent something similar to this occurring again, and to forgive the debt in relation to the phone.

The woman rejected this offer and the shop was not willing to modify it. Since we could do nothing more, we closed the file. We provided the woman with a certificate so she could show the Human Rights Review Tribunal we had investigated her complaint. We advised her that we did not consider the case warranted us referring it to the Director of Human Rights Proceedings, however, the woman was free to take the matter herself as a case before the Tribunal.