Source: Radio New Zealand
Lydia Oosterhoff is a human rights lawyer and senior associate at Cooper Legal. Jimmy Ellingham
- Mother of man named in online privacy breach linking him to abuse in state care fears it could cause further trauma
- Five abuse survivors named in OIA document still don’t know about breach
- Ministry of Social Development says it’s working on next steps with the law firm representing the five
- The law firm says the government department is washing its hands of responsibility.
This story discusses graphic details of abuse.
A woman fears her son could be severely traumatised, if he finds out the Ministry of Social Development published information linking his name to his application for compensation for abuse in state care.
He’s one of five people whose names were visible in an MSD Official Information Act document that was online for three months.
None of the five abuse survivors have yet been told about the breach, and there’s disagreement between MSD and the survivors’ lawyers about how they should be informed.
Breach ‘feels like punishment’
The mother of one of the five still can’t believe her son’s name appeared online in relation to a sensitive claim for compensation.
“I was in shock,” said the woman, who RNZ is not naming. “It’s almost like the more he tries to protect himself and keep himself safe, the more determined the government is to punish him for speaking out and trying to protect himself.
“This feels like punishment.”
MSD has apologised unreservedly for the breach, but the woman worries what could happen, should her son find out.
He has complex post-traumatic stress disorder, due to abuse he suffered when in the care of MSD.
His mother fears that, if he knew he was named on the internet in relation to this abuse, he could lose the ability to communicate or function.
“He spends every day trying to negotiate his way towards an ordinary life, but that’s overshadowed all day, every day by the constant triggers of reminders of what he suffered in the past.”
The woman found out about the breach from her son’s lawyer.
MSD said only three people viewed the document in the three months from its publication on 20 August until it was notified of the breach by Wellington human rights law firm Cooper Legal on 21 November.
However, Cooper Legal said many more people could have seen a cached version. MSD analytics don’t pick up how many views that had.
The woman whose son was named said, however many it was, the fact the names were published was problematic.
“How could it possibly be that only three people would view it in three months?” she said. “The other thing is, why should three people view it – it was nobody else’s business.
“Why should anybody know about what was happening, what he has experienced and what he is trying to hold MSD accountable for?”
Communication breakdown
MSD general manager Anna Graham said Cooper Legal made it clear the ministry shouldn’t directly approach the five named people to apologise.
She said the ministry remained concerned the five survivors hadn’t yet received a direct apology and it was working with Cooper Legal on what to do next.
“We wrote to Cooper Legal on 2 December about this matter and proposed resolution, including that contact and our apology be made through them,” Graham said. “We have letters of apology drafted.”
Graham said MSD had waited for a reply from Cooper Legal, receiving communication at the end of last week.
However, Cooper Legal principal lawyer Lydia Oosterhoff said the firm hadn’t kept MSD waiting and she was waiting to hear back from the ministry, after replying to its 2 December correspondence.
“That is a complete falsity,” she said of the MSD claims.
“MSD sent us one letter saying, ‘Cooper Legal can deal with it, Cooper Legal can tell the clients, we’ll wash our hands of it…. this is all we’re doing to do’.
“It’s absolutely, honestly perplexing.”
Meanwhile, the five people named remain unaware their privacy was breached.
“No, we haven’t told the survivors, because we don’t think we should be the ones to tell them,” Oosterhoff said.
“MSD said it was going to work with us to inform survivors about this breach in a trauma-informed manner and MSD hasn’t done that. It’s simply sent us a letter saying, ‘You tell them’.”
The five needed to be told in a way that recognised their vulnerability, and the sensitive nature of the breach and their abuse, she said.
At first, MSD proposed writing directly to them, but Oosterhoff said this wasn’t good enough.
“These are some of our society’s must vulnerable people and they’ve been made even more vulnerable by the state – the state that abused them in the first place.
“The state has now abused their privacy and the state is now not taking accountability.”
Call for compensation
Oosterhoff said she was looking into what compensation the five survivors should receive, something the woman whose son was named online said must happen.
“The reason why he’s got the [sensitive] claim is because there needs to be redress for what they’ve done to him, so further harm for breaching his privacy needs to be redressed as well,” she said. “It just adds on the harm they caused.”
Asked about the issue of compensation, MSD said it was discussing a proposed resolution with Cooper Legal.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
