AXP v Queensland Police Service

AXP, a member of the Queensland Police Service (QPS), lodged a complaint with the Information Commissioner alleging that QPS had breached information privacy principles by disclosing his personal information to a journalist. The complaint was referred to the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal (QCAT) which had jurisdiction to hear the matter. The Tribunal was required to decide whether the complaint was substantiated and if so whether QPS was liable for the breach. The Tribunal held that the complaint had not been substantiated. It found that the personal information in question was contained in an Executive Briefing Note (EBN) which had been prepared and distributed within QPS. The Tribunal found that the information in the EBN arose from a complaint under the Police Service Administration Act 1990 (Qld) and as such the privacy principles did not apply to the information. Even if they had applied the Tribunal found that the QPS had not breached the privacy principles. Although a member or members of the QPS had disclosed personal information to the journalist, the information had not been protected by reasonable safeguards and as such the QPS had breached privacy principle 4. However, a breach of privacy principle 4 did not automatically result in a breach of privacy principle 11 and there was no evidence that the QPS was liable for the disclosure.