ACC Advises of Privacy Breach

Media Release
9 February 2010

ACC Advises of Privacy Breach

Every month the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) provides businesses around the country with a report on injuries that have occurred in their workplace. The report assists the business better manage health and safety performance through having better information about accidents that have happened.

The report has two parts, a cover sheet and an attachment with further data included. That further data includes the name of the individuals, the type of injury they sustained and the cost to date.

About 15,000 businesses receive such a report each month. In line with standard practice in the public and private sectors, ACC uses an external mail-house for a mail-out of this size. They collate and send the reports on our behalf. They are not involved with the data in individual reports.

“While the mail-house does have measures to ensure that the right attachment goes with the right cover letter, unfortunately a problem has occurred with the January mail-out. The reports have not been collated correctly by the mail-house and some 2000 businesses will have received information intended for other organisations, including private information”, said Dr Keith McLea, ACC General Manager.

“Upon becoming aware of this today we immediately put in place steps to retrieve the reports and get them to the correct businesses. We have also requested a full investigation be done by the mail-house and that they review their processes to ensure that this doesn't happen again. We have also contacted the Privacy Commissioner to advise what has happened.”

“Our clients' information is of the utmost importance to us and we're very disappointed that privacy may have been breached. Our prime concern is to ensure that we get this information back as soon as we can. After that we will of course be holding discussions with the mail-house”.

“We apologise unreservedly to the individuals and businesses that have been affected by this unacceptable error and would assure them that we will do everything possible to ensure it does not happen again. We will also be contacting affected businesses directly to discuss the matter with them.”

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