Example of a Letter Requesting Your FILES
Jane Brown
10 Gutterbergs Lane
Lonely Mountain
28 November, 2002
Site Manager
....................... Branch
Child Youth & Family
PO Box..........
Great Mountain
Dear Sir/Madam
I write, under the Official Information and Privacy Acts,
to request a copy of all our records and documents from
the Department of Child Youth & Family; that is,
any and all information held by your office pertaining to
me, .........................,
my son, ............................, born on xx/ month/19xx,
and my daughter,
, born on xx/month/19xx,
..
Further, I also request any and all information held by your legal
department, archives office or any information held by any other
department or office where such information may be stored.
I look forward to receiving your response to provide the information
requested within the required time framework as laid down by the
government.
Thank you for your help.
Yours faithfully
Jane Brown
Things to Remember about Official Information Act Requests
Information held by New Zealand Cabinet Ministers, Government Ministries, Government Departments, Crown Organisations, and Local Authorities can be obtained by making an Official Information Act request.
These requests should be answered within 20 working days by the organisation concerned or passed on to an organisation that does hold the information.
Requests for Personal Information can also be requested and should be treated as a Request for Personal Information under the Privacy Act.
If information is not supplied or the request is refused an appeal can be made to the Ombudsman. Exceeding the 20 working days time limit without replying to a request is considered to be refusing the request.
Note: The 20 working days starts from the date a request is received by an organisation. It excludes Saturdays, Sundays, Public Holidays and all the days between 25 December each year to 15 January in the following year (a time when many state organisations only have a skeleton staff working.)
Requests can be refused (either completely or partially) if the information is (among other reasons):
- Publically available. E.g. Published on a website or in a book.
- Commercially sensitive,
- Personal to a third party or subject to a confidentiality agreement with a third party,
- Legally prohibited from being made public,
- Going to require a lot of effort to research, collate or compile (a fee may be charged to cover cost in this case),
- Going to require a lot of copying. (a fee may be charged to cover cost - EXCEPT for the applicant's personal information which should be supplied without charge.)
- Prejudicial to maintaining law and order or the right to a fair trial if made public,
- Prejudicial to National Security or the Economy if made public.