The Privacy Commissioner has taken the unusual step of publicly censuring a Whanganui drilling company.
The company, TD Drilling, drew the ire of the commissioner for not only failing to protect the confidentiality of information provided by an employee about drug use among its staff, but also losing much of the employee's personal records.
The company had already been ordered to pay its former employee, David Crichton, $22,115 after the Employment Relations Authority found TD Drilling's actions had led to Crichton's constructive dismissal.
The authority found TD Drilling failed to provide a safe workplace after Crichton revealed a culture of substance abuse among fellow workers.
Today's statement from the Privacy Commissioner refers only to a Mr R and a Mr S, but the details match those which emerged from the ERA decision in March, in which Mr R is Crichton and Mr S is his boss, Euan Tweeddale.