RKE and Department of Child Safety
RKE and Department of Child Safety
(210340, 31 January 2008)
Section 44(1) Matter affecting personal affairs – name of putative father – shared personal affairs
The Department of Child Safety denied the applicant access to matter recording his putative father’s name and other identifying information in his adoption file.
Applying the principles identified in KBN and Department of Families, Youth and Community Care (1998) 4 QAR 422, Acting Assistant Commissioner Jefferies decided that the information concerned the shared personal affairs of the applicant and his putative father and was prima facie exempt under section 44(1) of the FOI Act, subject to the public interest balancing test.
In this instance, the public interest considerations in favour of disclosing the information to the applicant were not sufficient to outweigh the strong privacy interests of the putative father and his family, particularly as the putative father had not acknowledged paternity and there was evidence that he had denied paternity.