If your request for any such information is refused, you can ask the Ombudsmen to investigate. If you feel that you are being denied these rights, you can now complain to the Privacy Commissioner. Privacy Principle 6. Privacy Principle 7. Requests from a company or unincorporated society for information held by public sector agencies about that body.
Personal information is information about an identifiable natural person.
For example, if you ask for a copy of a government file which is about yourself, your request will be classified as a request for personal information. If someone else requests your file, their request will be viewed as a request for official information. This does not mean that the information will be automatically released. The Official Information Act allows information to be withheld to protect the privacy of natural persons. No document will be labelled as either personal or official.