Privacy groups have blasted a decision by the Information Commissioner that found the Department of Human Services acted within the Australian Privacy Principles when it released details about a Centrelink client to a journalist last year.
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The statement released by the commissioner on Monday said that the release of the information was authorised by a provision of the Australian Privacy Principles that said if a government entity held "personal information for a primary purpose, it may use or disclose it for a secondary purpose if the individual would reasonably expect it to do so, and the secondary purpose is related to the primary purpose".
The commissioner launched an inquiry in March last year after an opinion piece was published in The Canberra Times by journalist Paul Malone that included personal details of blogger Andie Fox, who had previously had an opinion piece published also in The Canberra Times where she described her negative experiences dealing with Centrelink.
The details about Ms Fox were prepared by Department of Human Services staff and provided to the journalist by staff in the office of then Human Services minister Alan Tudge.
The inquiry was started by former information commissioner and privacy commissioner Timothy Pilgrim, who has since retired, and this week's decision was released by acting Information Commissioner and acting Privacy Commissioner Angelene Falk.
Digital Rights Watch chair Tim Singleton Norton said the decision was extremely concerning.
"To assume that the Australian Privacy Principles allow for release of information if a person has a 'reasonable expectation' is ludicrous, and tips the power way too much towards the holders of information rather than the individual,” he said in a statement.
Digital Rights Watch was joined in its statement by the Australian Privacy Foundation and Electronic Frontiers Australia.
“There is concern about the appearance that the privacy regulator may have been 'captured' by the Canberra federal bureaucracy and politicians after the government’s thwarted 2014-15 campaign to abolish and defund it," said chair of the Australian Privacy Foundation David Vaile.
