Judgements
Investigating a privacy complaint may constitute a
breach of privacy
On 21 March 2022, an Appeal Panel of the New South Wales Civil
and Administrative Tribunal ruled that a city council erred when it
internally classified a confidential “code of conduct”
complaint containing personal information as a “privacy
complaint”, and that by dealing with the complaint under a
different mechanism it in fact infringed the Privacy and
Personal Information Protection Act 1998 (NSW) by not
handling the personal information in accordance with the applicable
Information Privacy Principles: Cessnock City Council v
EMF [2022] NSWCATAP 72. Specifically, in upholding
the earlier decision of the Tribunal, the Appeal Board found that
the council had breached Information Privacy Principles 3 and 10
(that is, the principles set out in sections 10 and 17 of the
Act). IPP 3 requires a public sector agency to inform an
individual as soon as practicable that their personal
