1 Feb 2005, 09:00

Several prisoners expressed concerns about the Department of Corrections stamping all outgoing mail with the name of the prison from which it was sent. The prisoners each felt that the disclosure that they were a serving inmate in prison was humiliating and embarrassing. They also submitted that disclosure of an inmate's whereabouts could cause embarrassment to the recipients of mail. In addition there was the potential for victims' families to learn of the location of specific inmates, which could lead to some form of retribution.

This complaint raised issues under information privacy principle 11.

PERSONAL INFORMATION

The information that was disclosed was that the sender of the mail was an inmate in prison. However, the name of the sender was not apparent until the envelope was opened. There was a preliminary question, therefore, about whether stamping the envelope with the name of the prison amounted to disclosing “information about an identifiable individual”.

As the sender was identifiable once the addressee opened the envelope, I was of the opinion that the practice of stamping envelopes with the address of the prison revealed personal information about the sender.

PRINCIPLE 11: DISCLOSURE

Principle 11 prohibits the disclosure of personal information by an agency unless an exception applies. One exception is where the agency believes, on reasonable grounds, that the disclosure of the information is one of the purposes in connection with which the information was obtained or is directly related to that purpose.

The Department was asked to explain its reasons for introducing the policy, and to give any reasons why it should not be regarded as breaching principle 11.

The policy had been introduced in response to a situation involving an inmate writing many letters to girls aged 12 – 16 years. The inmate misled the recipients of these letters as to his circumstances and many of his letters were offensive. The Department assured my Office that this incident was not an isolated one, and that unwanted and inappropriate mail from inmates was an ongoing problem.

The Department stated that the policy of identifying all outgoing mail as coming from a prison was the most appropriate way to deal with the problem. It would enable the parents of minors to detect unwanted prison mail coming into the household, and so enable the parents to intercept it. The Department took the view that barring specific inmates from sending mail to unauthorised addresses would not improve the situation, since such inmates would be likely to use other, trusted, inmates to send letters for them.

PRINCIPLE 11 EXCEPTION (A)

The Department submitted that this exception applied. The information disclosed was the fact that the writer of the letter (whose name was not included on the envelope) was a serving inmate in prison. The Department argued that it holds this information for a lawful purpose – to enable the effective management of inmates. This includes ensuring that inmates are not permitted to engage in unwanted and inappropriate correspondence with minors. The information in question here had been disclosed to prevent such correspondence. This was therefore a purpose for which the information was obtained or was at least directly related to the purpose for which the information was obtained.

I agreed and formed the opinion that exception (a) applied and that there was no breach of principle 11.

CONCLUSION

I carefully considered the prisoners' arguments as to the humiliation and risks to them and others caused by this policy. I also considered whether there might be equally effective, but less intrusive methods of achieving the same result: protection of minors from unwanted and offensive mail from inmates. I concluded that there were not, for the reasons advanced by the Department. I was therefore of the opinion that the Department's policy of stamping outgoing mail with the name of the prison from which it was sent was an acceptable solution to the problem, and was not in breach of principle 11 as it fell within the exception provided by principle 11(a).

May 2005

Indexing terms: Disclosure of personal information – Department of Corrections – Outgoing mail identified as coming from a prison – Personal information – Disclosure for purposes in connection with which information was obtained or directly related to those purposes – Information privacy principle 11(a).

Disclosure of personal information – Department of Corrections – Outgoing mail identified as coming from a prison – “Information about an identifiable individual” – Definition of personal information.