Inland Revenue has launched an investigation and apologised for sending 28 people's private information to a Wanganui mother.
When Ashley Peters opened the envelope that contained it this week she was surprised to find 28 other declined applications for support as well. The whole stack was sent to her by the Inland Revenue Department (IRD).
"I told my dad, I think they have sent me other people's stuff," she said.
Her guess was that the stack of declined applications should have been posted to Work and Income New Zealand (Winz).
She said would have been "real pissed off" if her declined application for child support had been sent to somebody else by mistake.
The documents Ms Peters received included details such as names, Winz client numbers and IRD numbers of the applicants, their addresses, the names and birth dates of their children and the reasons the applications were declined. Sometimes these were because there was no proof of who fathered the babies.
The papers she received at her home address contained details of applicants from Rotorua, Palmerston North, Kawerau, Porirua and other places. She couldn't imagine how they got sent to her, because they amounted to a much bigger pile of paper than one declined application would make.
Ms Peters had earlier filled in a Child Support Formula Assessment Application form at Winz, which was posted to the IRD.
It asked the department to assess the ability of her child's father to pay child support, and to collect the money. That money would probably go to the Crown to help pay a sole-parent benefit for her. If she was not on a benefit it would go direct to her, IRD Deputy Commissioner service delivery Arlene White said.
Parents' incomes and circumstances formed part of the applications.
Ms Peters, 18, is the mother of 4-week-old Emar and lives in Wanganui. Her application was declined because it did not include a birth certificate.
Now she's waiting to see what will happen next after the mail mixup.
"It's going to be sort of funny to see who they are going to blame it on."
Ms White said the IRD had made contact with Ms Peters and the return of the information was its highest priority. It was also contacting the customers whose information was released, to apologise and let them know the steps it was taking to remedy the situation.
The department was undertaking an internal investigation into the incident, and had also referred it to the Privacy Commissioner.
It is reviewing procedures such as manual mail handling that may have resulted in the mistake.
"We are also undertaking an employment investigation," Ms White said.
During the last year about 50 staff in her department processed almost 47,200 applications for child support.
On average, the department had up to 20 incidents of privacy breach a year, and all were investigated.
The last well-publicised breach of privacy by a Government department was made by ACC, when Bronwyn Pullar was mistakenly emailed a spreadsheet giving the details of 6700 fellow clients. They included 250 sexual-abuse survivors.
An independent investigation into ACC procedures resulted. It found an "almost cavalier" attitude to clients' private information, as well as other problems.
ACC's chairperson, chairman and Government minister all resigned as a result.
COMPLAINTS TO PRIVACY COMMISSIONER 2010-11
Agencies collecting information from individuals