AEC v Commissioner of Police (NSW)

AEC appealed against the decision of a Tribunal which dismissed an application for review of the conduct of the Commissioner of Police (NSW). The Tribunal had found that it had no jurisdiction to hear the complaint because the Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act 1998 did not apply to the Commissioner. The dispute concerned the disclosure by the Commissioner of the complainant's old criminal record to another person, and the complainant alleged a breach of privacy.

The legal issues before the court were whether the Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act 1998 applied to the Commissioner of Police (NSW), and whether the Tribunal had jurisdiction to review the Commissioner's conduct. The court was required to interpret and apply section 27 of the Act, which sets out the circumstances in which personal information can be disclosed by an agency. The court also needed to consider whether the Act applied to the Commissioner as an agency within the meaning of the Act.

The court held that the Act did not apply to the Commissioner of Police (NSW) and that the Tribunal therefore had no jurisdiction to review the Commissioner's conduct. The court found that the definition of "agency" in the Act did not include a police force, and that the circumstances of the disclosure of the complainant's criminal record did not fall within the exceptions to the general prohibition on disclosure set out in section 27. The court dismissed the appeal and corrected the Tribunal's order to reflect that the application for review was dismissed for want of jurisdiction.