An anti-abortion flyer printed on the back of old letters containing personal information and dropped into Albury letterboxes could be in breach of privacy laws.
Businesses on Englehardt Street who are used to protecting their client’s privacy received the flyers in their letterboxes last Thursday and Friday and raised the alarm.
“It’s appalling,” naturopath Diedre Ellis said.
“If they’ve used personal details without them knowing, that’s an invasion of privacy.”
The flyer has a Right to Life Australia message that admonishes euthanasia and abortions.
On the back an older letter dated December 1988 from Corporate Affairs Victoria details outstanding lodging fees and threatens to deregister a company.
A concerned business on Englehardt Street, which did not want to be named, passed the flyer onto The Border Mail and two other businesses, including Ms Ellis’, confirmed they received flyers like it.
Dental assistant Jordyn Knoble, who works a few doors up at I M Dental, said the practice has received at least six flyers printed on old letters during the past month.
She said she felt she was looking at a private document and looked away, throwing the paper out immediately.
“It’s inappropriate. It’s obviously a legal document,” Ms Knoble said.
The flyer bears the signature of Melbourne-based Right to Life president Margaret Tighe, not that she knows it.
“It’s got nothing to do with us,” Ms Tighe said.
She said someone must have copied part of the group’s newsletter.
“That’s something that we put out for our last newsletter and they’re probably hoping to wake other people up to concerns,” she said.
“They’re not doing anything wrong as far as we’re concerned.”
But it could breach Victorian privacy laws.
The Information Privacy Act 2000 prevents organisations from re-using documents containing the personal information of individuals.
Individuals acting in a private capacity are not subject to privacy laws.
Director of privacy awareness for the Victorian Privacy Commissioner said the circumstances of the case made it difficult to assess, particularly because the letters were so old.
Mr Taylor said it could breach the Data Security principle that states an organisation must take reasonable steps to protect personal information it holds from misuse, loss and unauthorised access.
The Helper’s of God’s Precious Infants Albury spokeswoman Peta Evans said as far as she was aware, the group had not placed flyers of any kind in letterboxes in Englehardt Street.
“It’s definitely not me and I haven’t heard of who it would be,” she said.
