Government agencies and professionals cannot use privacy law as a reason for failing to share information when a child’s safety or wellbeing is at risk, the Privacy Commissioner says following the damning Phillips children inquiry.
Privacy Commissioner Michael Webster has issued the reminder after the inquiry identified failures in information sharing between government agencies as one of the weaknesses in the response to the disappearance of the Phillips children. The Government has accepted all nine recommendations from the inquiry, which found agencies did not always share the right information, listen sufficiently to family concerns or act with enough urgency.
Webster says the law is clear: there is no legislative barrier preventing child welfare and protection agencies, health practitioners or children’s workers from sharing relevant information when there are concerns about a child’s wellbeing or safety.
Existing laws already provide several pathways for information sharing. The Oranga Tamariki Act 1989 allows information to be shared for child wellbeing and safety purposes, the Family Violence Act 2018 provides specific information-sharing powers relating to family violence, and the Privacy Act 2020 permits disclosure in circumstances including serious threats and law enforcement.
The Commissioner says professionals acting under the child protection information-sharing framework are protected unless information is shared in bad faith. In relevant circumstances, consent from the child or their parents is not necessarily required.
The message is particularly important following the Phillips inquiry, which found a more consistent and collaborative approach between agencies could potentially have prevented the children’s second disappearance or helped bring them home sooner.
The Office of the Privacy Commissioner has directed children’s workers and agencies to its What Can I Share guidance, designed to explain what information can legally be shared, with whom and under what circumstances.
The Phillips case therefore leaves agencies with a clear lesson: privacy law is there to protect information — not to become a barrier to protecting a child.
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