KT and Brisbane North Regional Health Authority

Application number:
1994 S0075
Decision date:
Thursday, Mar 26, 1998
Reported:
(1998) 4 QAR 287

KT and Brisbane North Regional Health Authority
(1994 S0075, 26 March 1998) 

The applicant sought access to identifying information concerning an individual who had provided foster care for the applicant's birth child prior to the child's placement for adoption.

Applying the principles in Stewart and Department of Transport (1993) 1 QAR 227 and B and Brisbane North Regional Health Authority(1994) 1 QAR 279, the Information Commissioner held that the matter in issue concerned the personal affairs of the individual who had provided foster care, but did not concern the personal affairs of the access applicant, and thus was prima facie exempt under s.44(1) of the FOI Act, subject to the application of the public interest balancing test in s.44(1).

The Information Commissioner held that the matter in issue was exempt under s.44(1), on the basis that the public interest considerations favouring disclosure of the matter in issue were not strong enough to outweigh the public interest (inherent in the satisfaction of the test for prima facie exemption under s.44(1) of the FOI Act) in safeguarding the privacy of information concerning the personal affairs of the person whose name was in issue.

The Information Commissioner also decided that the matter in issue was exempt under s.48(1) of the FOI Act, on the basis that its disclosure would contravene s.144(3) of the Children's Services Act 1965 (one of the prescribed secrecy provisions listed in Schedule 1 to the FOI Act), and that there was no compelling reason in the public interest which required disclosure.