Annual Report examples of settlement of complaints

Some examples of successful settlements in the past year include:

• A complainant requested access to information which was being relied upon to revoke his visitor's permit. The respondent did not respond within 20 working days and, while some information was eventually supplied, some was withheld for several months. I found that the agency had breached section 40 of the Privacy Act by not responding to the complainant within the statutory time frame. The complainant accepted a payment of $3,500 in settlement of the complaint.
• When an employee left his job, he owed the employer money for commissions paid on cancelled insurance policies. The employee began repaying the debt, but disputed the amount owed. The former employer lodged the debt with a credit reporting agency, and the following month the debt was settled. The employee complained about the debt being listed while discussions regarding the debt were ongoing and about the employer providing inaccurate information about the amount of the debt. I formed the provisional opinion that the employer had breached principle 3 by not informing the employee that it intended to list the debt with a credit reporting agency, and principle 7 because it had not advised the credit agency that the debt had been settled. I found no breach of principle 8. After further correspondence, the employer paid the employee $5,000 and the complaint was settled.
• An employee's name was displayed on a white board at one of his employer's offices as being a staff member who was to be made redundant. The information remained on the board for several days and was seen by a number of staff members. Following notification of the complaint, the employer offered the employee $500 to settle the complaint. The offer was accepted and the file was closed without my having to form an opinion.

This material was extracted from the Report of the Privacy Commissioner for the year ended 30 June 2001, page 23.

June 2006
Indexing terms: Settlement - Annual Report - employer - information privacy principles 6, 7 and 11