Overview

Introduction

This section contains the policy and guidelines for dealing with requests for information received by the Community Probation Service.

What are requests for information?

Requests for information include:

• requests (under the Privacy Act 1993) from offenders for:
  • their file
  • particular documents and computer records relating to themselves, or
  • correction to information held, and

Note: Requests for information under the Official Information Act 1982, are covered in the next chapter.

Follow the guidelines

It is vital that Probation Officers follow the guidelines for managing requests for information. This may include making difficult decisions about the need to relate information.

Reference: This chapter, Sect 8C, Handling Requests for Information (please refer to the related links section on this page).

Failure to do this can have severe negative consequences for:

• the offender
• potential/previous victims
• the individual staff member, and
• Community Probation Service.

In this chapter

This chapter contains the following sections.

• Handling Requests for Information
• Access to and Correction of Personal Information
• Refusing Requests for Information
• Use and Disclosure of Personal Information