The complainant had a dispute with a local council arising from his involvement in a council-initiated project. A council employee wrote to the complainant about the project and copied the letter to the mayor, a councillor and a third person. The letter contained a reference to the complainant's possessions which were at the project site.

The complainant considered that the letter contained personal information about him and objected to its disclosure to these people. He complained to me about this disclosure. The council responded that its elected members were entitled to any correspondence held by the council, with very few exceptions. The letter was copied to the mayor because he had received correspondence from the complainant in the past and was interested in the project's progress. The councillor received a copy because the project was located in her ward and she had asked to be advised about it. The letter was copied to the third person because of her involvement with the project. She, too, had asked for information about it. All three seemed to be aware of the complainant's involvement with the project.

The complaint raised issues under principle 11, which limits the instances in which personal information may be disclosed. Principle 11(a) allows information to be disclosed if that is one of the purposes for which the information was obtained, or it is directly related to one of those purposes. I had to consider the purpose for which the council had the information and its reasons for copying the letter to the three people.

The information related to the project. One of the purposes for writing the letter seemed to be to help progress the project. I accepted that it was sensible to keep other people involved with the project, or with a special interest in it, up to date. I formed the opinion that copying council-originated correspondence to these people was a means of assisting the furtherance of the project and that this disclosure was one of the purposes for which the information had been obtained.

I concluded that the council had not breached principle 11.

April 1998

Indexing terms: Disclosure of personal information - Local authority - Correspondence copied to third parties - Information privacy principle 11