27 Dec 2012

Privacy incident not an isolated case - Labour

12:00 pm on 27 December 2012

Labour says an incident which left the Minister of Education at the centre of a privacy complaint is not an isolated case.

The minister's office responded to a school's board of trustees after receiving a letter from a teacher, who was writing as a private citizen. The teacher then complained to the Privacy Commission.

Labour MP Chris Hipkins said he knows of the same situation happening to many teachers who wrote to the minister about class sizes earlier this year.

The Privacy Commission says guidelines have been refined so that the minister's office responds only to the writer, unless a letter is written on school letterhead.