1 Feb 2003, 09:00

A man received a letter showing Community Probation Service, Department of Corrections as the sender on the back of the envelope. He considered this disclosed personal information about him, indicating that he was serving a community sentence. He complained to me about the disclosure.

His complaint raised issues under principle 11, and I formed the opinion the Department's actions had breached that principle.

Principle 11

Principle 11 provides that an agency which holds personal information must not disclose that information unless an exception applies. The Department relied on two exceptions.

Maintenance of the law

An agency may disclose personal information if it believes, on reasonable grounds, that disclosure is necessary to avoid prejudice to the maintenance of the law by any public sector agency (principle 11(e)(i)).

The Department commented that displaying “Community Probation Service” on the envelope would encourage the mail to be opened promptly, forwarded to the correct address, or promptly returned. The Department believed that it was of value to the recipient, and the sender, to ensure that correspondence was not overlooked. It explained that failure to respond to some correspondence could result in a Court appearance for a breach of sentence, or a victim missing the opportunity to participate in a reparation process.

I thought that the purpose of placing a return address on mail was to assist its return if the recipient had changed location. For this purpose, it might have been necessary to print the words “Department of Corrections” to alert others to the importance of the mail. However, in my view, it did not seem necessary to include the words “Community Probation Service”. I thought that having the words “Community Probation Service” on the envelope disclosed personal information about the recipient.

The Department accepted that identifying the Community Probation Service on the envelope did disclose some personal information about the addressee but considered that it did not reveal the fact that the recipient was serving a sentence because the Probation Service had numerous contacts with the wider community.

I suggested instead that only “Department of Corrections” appear in the sender details on the envelope. This would not reveal which division in that Department was contacting the addressee. I welcomed the Department's indication that it would use only “Department of Corrections” in future.

Purpose for which the information was obtained

The Department also relied on exception 11(a). This provides that personal information may be disclosed if disclosure is one of the purposes for which the information was obtained, or is directly related to that purpose. For exception 11(a) to apply, the Department had to show why placing the words “Community Probation Service” assisted its purpose in sending the correspondence.

The Department explained that the Services' details were placed on the reverse of the envelope to alert recipients of the importance of the contents of the envelope and to ensure that undelivered or misdirected mail would be returned promptly. However, I considered that as long as the postal box was given, it should not matter whether the sender's name was given as “Community Probation Service” or “Department of Corrections”. It was not the sender's name but the box number which would guide the efficient return of the mail.

I was not satisfied that either of the two exceptions advanced by the Department applied in the circumstances. I formed the opinion that by including the name of the Community Probation Service as part of the sender's details on the envelope, the Department of Corrections had breached principle 11.

Harm

For an interference with an individual's privacy to be found to have occurred, the individual must have suffered harm or loss of the nature described in section 66 as well as a breach of a principle.

The man said that the disclosure had caused him significant distress. He told me that he was well known in the area because he had spent his childhood and other extended periods there and his family still lived there. He explained that when he was charged, he went to great lengths to prevent it from becoming known in the area, to the extent of having the trial elsewhere. He said he felt humiliated at the arrival of the letter with such an explicit return address.

I noted that the man did not provide any evidence to show that any person, other than the postal service worker, saw the envelope addressed to him. There was no evidence before me to suggest that anyone, other than he, had noticed the return address, or drew any inference from it.

As the man failed to satisfy me that he had suffered harm from the disclosure, I formed the opinion that the Department's actions had not amounted to an interference with his privacy.

I advised the man of my opinion and that I had decided not to refer the matter to the Human Rights Review Tribunal. I told him of his right to bring proceedings on his own accord and closed my file.

September 2003

Indexing terms: Disclosure of personal information – Department of Corrections – Community Probation Service – Whether full sender details on envelope necessary for department's purpose – Information privacy principle 11(a)

Disclosure of personal information – Department of Corrections – Community Probation Service – Whether full sender details on envelope necessary for maintenance of the law – Privacy Act 1993, s 66 – Information privacy principle 11(e)(i) – “punishment of offences”