Privacy Commissioner - Te Mana Matapono Matatapu

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Risk to mental health

Occasionally, giving people access to information about themselves can be actively harmful to them.

Where there is a risk to the person's physical safety (or there is a risk to someone else's physical safety), the agency can withhold the information under section 27(1)(d).

Where the agency believes that giving someone access to information could harm their mental health, then the agency may also be able to withhold the information. Before the agency can do this, it has to show:

• the information the person is wanting is about that person;
• the agency has discussed with the person's medical practitioner whether it's advisable to release the information to that person;
• the medical practitioner believes that there's a real risk that releasing the information could damage the person's mental (or physical) health; and
• the agency agrees with that advice.

A person's medical practitioner might be their GP, or their specialist - most commonly their psychiatrist. It needs to be someone who is involved in the person's treatment and who is therefore likely to have a reasonable understanding of what the effect on the person will be.

Sometimes, the person may not have seen a medical practitioner for some time. People's circumstances change - for instance, a person who would have been harmed by release of information some years ago may no longer be harmed if that information is given to them today. If an agency thinks that the person may be at risk if he or she receives the information, it may be worth suggesting that the person has an independent medical assessment.

Rather than denying the person access to all the information, it's worth the agency thinking about whether it can release a summary of information, or talk the person through what is concerning them (see "what does access mean"). It's not an "all or nothing" decision.

References

Privacy Act 1993
Section 29(1)
An agency may refuse to disclose any information requested pursuant to principle 6 if -

(c) After consultation undertaken (where practicable) by or on behalf of the agency with an individual's medical practitioner, the agency is satisfied that -

(i) The information relates to that individual; and
(ii) The disclosure of the information (being information that relates to the physical or mental health of the individual who requested it) would be likely to prejudice the physical or mental health of that individual

HRRT/Court cases: