The Human Rights Review Tribunal recently found that the Parole Board breached the Privacy Act when it disclosed an offender’s parole address, with tragic consequences.

Reviewed and updated May 2025

A recent data breach provided an example of how it is sometimes possible to catch a breach as it is happening and avert potential harm.

Late last year, one of my senior investigating officers came to me with a file she’d been working on for quite a while. She was convinced the facts supported a finding of an “interference with privacy”, that is, a breach of the privacy principles, that had caused harm to the complainant. She’d tried to reach a settlement, but the parties were too far apart.