Of despots and sheep The High Court has said: It is “out of the question” and not a conceivable function of a judicial tribunal in a civilised country “for the tribunal to impair the obligation of a law or to attempt to make a new one … There may be legislatures which prefer to set…
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Justice inaction The NSW Department of Justice, represented by its Office of General Counsel, appeared before the Civil and Administrative Tribunal (Tribunal), which it administers, because one of its divisions (Corrective Services) contravened privacy legislation. It undertook a half-arsed review of the conduct, made recommendations that weren’t implemented, then continued to engage in the contravening…
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Mending fences I felt angry when I read the New South Wales Civil and Administrative Tribunal’s (the Tribunal’s) decision in DMW and DMX v NSW Rural Fire Service [2019] NSWCATAD 158 (9 August 2019). I felt angry because it seemed to me that the Tribunal construed and applied the Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act…
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Old sin Y v Director General, Department of Education & Training [2001] NSWADT 149 (12 September 2001) is about the privacy rights of an employee (Y) of the Department of Education (the Department). Y was aggrieved at the Department’s handling of defamatory personal information it had collected in a review of management practices that Y…
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Lost the plot “The development of distorted positions is to be avoided.”[1] The Administrative and Equal Opportunity Division of the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal has lost the plot. It’s applying case law principles that reverse privacy law as Parliament wrote it and denying that it has the jurisdiction to do its job. The principles are…
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Lawful collection IPP and HPP NSW privacy law: does it prohibit, or require, the collection of personal and health information by public agencies? Is privacy law’s purpose a mandatory consideration when construing it? What should ‘lawful purpose’ mean? Is the prohibition against collection by ‘any unlawful means’ inclusive of a means of collection that contravenes…
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Disclaimer and comments policy Welcome to my blog. I hope you’ll find my opinions interesting even if you don’t agree with them. Disclaimer Please don’t take my opinions about privacy law as legal advice and act on them because I don’t have a law qualification and, be warned, an Appeal Panel said “ALZ’s alternative construction…
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ALZ and the OH & S Division of WorkCover The Civil and Administrative Tribunal (the Tribunal) decided that the Health Privacy Principles (HPPs) of the Health Records and Information Privacy Act 2002 (NSW) (the HRIP Act) permitted WorkCover NSW (who later became SafeWork NSW) to use my health information against my interests, without my knowledge…
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