ACC boss: more privacy breaches will happen
Stewart says the buck stops with him - but won't say would it would take for him to resign.
ACC chief executive Ralph Stewart “wishes” there would be no more privacy breaches, but he knows there won’t be.
“The key thing is to declare for ACC that no breaches is our objective," he told Paul Holmes on TV One's Q+A.
Mr Stewart said, “The buck stops with me," but refused to say what it would take for him to resign.
Privacy was just one of his his responsibilities in a complex organisation, he said.
Despite a series of high-profile privacy blunders, “In terms of public trust and confidence, I believe that ACC has it.”
The CEO said his first six months had been “ a baptism of fire”, but claimed to be enjoying the job.
On the Bronwyn Pullar affair, Mr Stewart said, “We are managing her case as we can under legislation and as carefully and sensibly as we can through ACC.”
The privacy breaches have to be put into context: “Bronwyn is one of 1.7 million claims last year.”
An independent report on recent privacy lapses - being carried out by KPMG - would be finished and made public by the end of the year, Mr Stewart said.
A second report was focussing on how files were being processed and sent out electronically in the digital age. It would investigate ACC's infrastructure, and look at creating better practices.
He said ACC had also appointed 80 staff as "privacy champions through the ACC network to constantly monitor, maintain and raise awareness for privacy".
An update to the Privacy Act, due later this year, is expected to include a number of measures recommended by the Law Commission including mandatory reporting of privacy breaches.
ACC has been accused of dragging its feet over informing around 6500 people that their confidential case files were accidentally emailed to Ms Pullar.
Calls informing clients only began after the affair hit the media.
For her part, Ms Pullar has alleged that thousands of ACC staff and contractors had ready access to her file, "from a mail room assistant up".
NBR staff
Mon, 21 May 2012
Mon, 21 May 2012
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