Posted on: Oct 19, 2012
The Privacy Commissioner said it was not necessary, in terms of Principle 1 of the Privacy Act, for a credit check to be carried out on a woman who applied for a job as a part-time retail assistant with a large retail chain employer. The job application had been completed online on the store’s website. As part of the process she was required to consent to the store carrying out a credit check on her.
The woman did not get the job and she complained to the Commissioner that she considered the store’s collection of her credit report was unnecessary for the purpose of determining whether she was a suitable applicant.
The Commissioner agreed with her and said under the Credit Reporting Privacy Code 2004 employers can only access credit information where a job involves significant financial risk to the employer and the Commissioner did not consider that a part-time retail assistant job posed such a risk.
See Case Note 222306 [2012] NZ PrivCmr 4 which can be accessed at www.privacy.org.nz.
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