ACT Privacy and Meeting Participants

[Legalities]

Our company is an authorised representative under an AFSL. We were asked to come into the AFSL's office for a meeting 'to go through a couple of things' and told that 'everything is all good'. We are accordingly to our contractual arrangement not employees. When we arrived at the office the licensee began to discuss private matters between the AFSL and our business in front of his employee whereby he was ceasing our sub-letting arrangement and discussing an agreement regarding fees. When we tried to indicate (by pointing discreetly) that their employee was sitting at their desk listening to the details he ignored us and kept discussing the details. We suspect he had asked his employee (or the employee had suggested) to sit at their desk within earshot and listen for their own purposes. At no time did the AFSL declare in what capacity the employee was sitting at their desk listening to the discussion.

My question is this a breach of privacy rules and would the employees recollection be valid in any legal sense? We were extremely upset to be put in the situation and don't believe that it was both legal or appropriate.

 

[Rob Legat - SBPL]

The details may have been 'commercially sensitive', but they don't fall under the legal concept of 'private'. Companies don't have privacy rights in Australia the same way that people do. To add to matters, it is within reason to anticipate that an employee of the organisation would have a degree of knowledge of the business dealings with your company through their employment duties.

 

[Legalities]

Please delete this post as I am not comfortable with this being up.

I have sent through a report asking for it to be deleted three times. How do I delete it?

 

[Legalities]

I would ask that you delete this post as it is in Breach of Community Guidelines on LawAnswers as I am potentially identifiable.

• Publish your contact details or personal information - This includes not publishing any information that may identify you or your involvement in a legal proceeding.

 

[Scruff]

@Legalities - You have nothing to worry about - you haven't said anything that identifies you. If you're worried about someone recognizing the "circumstances" you've described - well that can be said for pretty much every question asked on this forum.

Given that's the case and an answer has been provided, I wouldn't think it appropriate to delete the thread, because your question and the given answer could be helpful to others - but that's just my opinion.

With that said, it may take a while for a site admin to login and see your request. This site doesn't have 24/7 moderators like some larger forums do, so it could take 24 hours or more. You just need to be patient.