Confidentiality

Recently a lecturer told us that all you need to do to get hold of students addresses is to ask the Registry. We protested that confidentiality regulations made this impossible, but our lecturer then replied that he had had no trouble in obtaining addresses over the phone.

Earlier this year a History lecturer in an effort to regain books loaned to students telephoned the registry. He gave his name, said he was a lecturer and required the addresses of certain students so he could get in touch with them and get his books back. The registry gave him the addresses.

The call he made was on the internal phone but he spoke to someone who didn't know him, and he gave no further identification than his name and department. No further identification was requested by the registry.

In the midst of the furore over the Such trial, Mr. Rowling (PM), and Minister in charge of the Security Intelligence Service, in reply to a question said there were no SIS agents on any campus in New Zealand. This could well be. Indeed they are hardly needed on campus when it is so easy to get what is supposed to be Confidential information out of the registry.

The confidential nature of information about students is designed to do more than keep SIS agents off the backs of radicals. So that students can study in some peace the information is kept debt collectors and any other agencies whose job it is to hound.

On the other hand if any attempt at all is to be made to establish a university community then perhaps teaching staff should have access to private addresses. This may not be looking for lost books: they may want to talk to a student about his work. Community in this sense would not be established if a teacher is denied access to his students at home.

But it remains that the registry did not sufficiently identify the history lecturer to establish that he was a teacher concerned about his students, and not a hoax caller (SIS or other agency) concerned with finding out the private addresses of students.