Police attract most privacy complaints

Government departments were the most popular target of complaints to the Privacy Commissioner.

Of the top eight most complained about organisations, only two were private companies, the annual report for the year to June shows.

The police came top with 58 complaints, followed by the Accident Compensation Corporation, 55, Work and Income, 40, Child, Youth and Family, 35, Corrections Department, 29, and Inland Revenue, 15, followed by private companies Baycorp, 15, and Telecom, 13.

The commissioner's office received 881 new complaints in the year to June - 80 more than in the previous year.

Only 3.5 per cent of complainants decided to take their case to the Complaints Review Tribunal, which meant most were resolved by mediation.

Commissioner Bruce Slane said some agencies attracted complaints just because of their nature. Government departments appeared to be improving their methods for dealing with complaints.

"In last year's report I observed that my dealings with the police were less than satisfactory. I am pleased to say there has been some improvement in the situation."

He said the time between when a complaint was received and assigned to an investigating officer had dropped from an 18-month average to 12 months. Despite the backlog, one-third of cases were cleared within three months.

Complicated cases required a large amount of evidence to be collected, contributing to delays.

Mr Slane said about 39 per cent of complaints were by people wanting access to personal or health information and 38 per cent concerned inappropriate disclosure of information.

- NZPA