An employee of a securities company was suspected to have mis-distributed account statement of a client to another client of the company - Privacy Commissioner was entitled not to continue any further investigation - Section 39(2)(d) of the Ordinance
The Complaint
The complainant was a client of a securities company ("the Company"). According to the complainant, a staff of the Company ("Mr. X") instructed his subordinate ("Ms. Y") to distribute the complainant's account statement to another client of the Company ("the Third Party") improperly and thereby infringing the complainant's privacy right. He further alleged that Mr. X did so because there had been some previous dispute between them.
Findings by Privacy Commissioner
In the preliminary enquiry by the Privacy Commissioner, Mr. X and Ms. Y denied the complainant's allegation. The Privacy Commissioner also made inquiries with a representative of a newspaper to which the complainant had complained about the same incident. The representative informed the Privacy Commissioner that the Company had admitted to him over the telephone that the complainant's account statement was mistakenly sent to the Third Party, but the representative had no record of the telephone conversation.
The Privacy Commissioner was of the opinion that the complainant's allegation could not be established conclusively. Even if the complainant's account statement was sent to the Third Party, it was not done deliberately and was an isolated incident. The Privacy Commissioner considered that an investigation would not lead to any significant benefit to the public. The Privacy Commissioner decided not to carry out any further investigation of the complaint pursuant to S.39(2)(d). Dissatisfied with the Privacy Commissioner's decision, the Complainant lodged an appeal with the AAB.
The Appeal
The complainant was unable to provide the AAB with the contact details of the newspaper's representative, but the complainant was content to proceed with the appeal without calling the representative to give evidence. Eventually, the complainant did not pursue the case in the manner that Mr. X had deliberately instructed Ms. Y to distribute the complainant's account statement to the Third Party but maintained that Ms. Y did in fact give his account statement to the Third Party and wished the Company to clarify whether it was due to Ms. Y's negligence that she did so. The AAB did not consider it necessary to rule whether Ms. Y did mis-deliver the complainant's account statement to the Third Party or not. The AAB considered that, even if Ms. Y did mis-deliver the complainant's account statement to the Third Party, AAB would still agree with the Privacy Commissioner's assessment that further investigation on the facts of the complaint would unlikely lead to any significant benefit to the public. AAB found that the Privacy Commissioner had exercised his discretion under S.39(2)(d) properly.
The AAB Decision
The appeal was dismissed.
uploaded on web in May 2009