Karen Chhour: Children's Minister slams Oranga Tamariki privacy breaches as 'unacceptable'

Oranga Tamariki's privacy standards are in the spotlight after a critical review. 

The report highlighted nine cases it described as a 'snapshot of issues'. 

They include a locked cabinet of client files being donated to charity, and social workers giving a mother's and child's address to a father accused of rape. 

In another, a mother suffered more abuse - after her file was shared with her child's father. 

Minister for Children Karen Chhour says that case was particularly tough reading. 

"That gives me grave concern - which is why I set an expectation for Oranga Tamariki around privacy and privacy breaches. These are unacceptable." 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
A woman who'd escaped her abusive partner had her address
and details revealed to that ex partner by ordering a tamadiki.
This has been revealed in a review of OT's approach
to privacy, which apparently is not that great. This woman
was subsequently abused re abused by that ex partner. Karen

(00:22):
Chraw's the Minister for Children. She's with me now, High Minister.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Oh, hi Ryan, thanks for having me on.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
Good to have you on. How do you feel reading
these cases?

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Oh, it's absolutely horrifying to be perfectly honest. Oh wear
two hats in this building, and one is the prevention
of family harm and sexual violence. And when I read
that about another for about a woman being re abused
because of something that a staff member and ordering a
tamaitiqui has deliberately done, that gives me grave concern, which

(00:56):
is why I set an expectation with what I'm talmatic
care around privacy and privacy breaches that they are unacceptable,
they won't be accepted, and they can't continue like this.
People rely on us and trust us with their personal
details that are often very hard to share in the
first place, and those details should be treated with dignity

(01:19):
or respect.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
When you say this was deliberately done, what do you
mean do you mean that this person knew they could
be putting the woman at risk?

Speaker 2 (01:28):
Well, just reading what was written and said a staff
member took a screenshot of a mother's file and shared
it with the child's father, leading to further physical abuse.
So just going off that sentence, when I read that,
that horrifies me. And I haven't looked further yet into
the details of that, but read the statement. If it's

(01:49):
taken of course I will, and if it's taken at
face value from what is written there, it is completely unacceptable.
But what I might add also is that this pre date,
this comes into twenty twenty two and twenty twenty three
pre dates from when I was here. But I have
set that expectation that this won't continue, and I'd just

(02:11):
like to note that we have not had any of
these notifiable privacy breaches in the last twelve months. The
expectation is that people privacy is treated with dignity and respect.
This is people's lives we're talking about here, their lives
on piece of paper, and we need to treat it
as such.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
Minister, Thank you very much. For your time. That's Karen Shaw.
She is the Minister for Children in charge of OT
and we'll be investigating that screenshop.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
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Speaker 1 (02:42):
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