Pilots to fight 'illegal' checks in High Court

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The country's commercial pilots will take legal action in the High Court today to stop airlines snooping into their backgrounds.

The Air Line Pilots' Association has also sent a letter to Transport Minister Steven Joyce in a bid to stop the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) carrying out what it calls "unlawful and secretive information trawls" through pilots' records.

The CAA says the move is to check that pilots have disclosed any drug and alcohol convictions. It has already checked on a random sample of 100, without uncovering any undisclosed convictions.

Both parties say the results of the checks are then stored for "future assessment", without the pilots ever being told that their information has been accessed.

CAA spokesman Bill Sommer said the checks were a means of ensuring that New Zealand's pilots were fit to fly.

"For people to hold an aviation document, they are required to be fit and proper. In doing this, we're ensuring they retain their fit and proper status, to ensure the safety of the travelling public isn't jeopardised."

When asked why the authority wouldn't tell pilots their backgrounds were being checked, Mr Sommer said: "All that does is just put another layer of bureaucracy in the system."

Pilots' association president Mark Rammell said it was completely unethical and illegal for the authority to invade pilots' privacy without so much as a letter.

"It's not about safety and it's not about any pilots being caught out or anything like that. All we're saying is if you're going to do it, do it lawfully. Tell people that you're going to do it to them."

Mr Rammell said the association had received a legal opinion that CAA director Steve Douglas did not have the power to trawl through records.

The association planned to file papers in the High Court this morning to try to stop the background checks.

"The director's required to have a just cause to go and look at someone's records ... [The Privacy Act] does not give him permission to go on a blanket fishing expedition."

Mr Rammell said pilots were required to state any convictions when they got their licence, but the authority's move was a breach of their privacy.

"If the CAA director wants to know if a plane is up to scratch, he goes to look at it and meet with maintenance staff. He doesn't randomly sneak around hangars at night shining a torch in the windows," Mr Rammell said.

In the letter to Mr Joyce, the association acknowledged that the CAA had a right to exercise a monitoring role. "Being pragmatic and reasonable is the issue."

It told the minister of the legal opinion that the current approach "is an invasion of members' privacy".

"The sampling is unlawful in regards to the powers of the director of the CAA and [the association] believes the minister is condoning this unlawful activity."

Mr Sommer said if the pilots' association wanted to take legal action against the authority, "that's up to them".