Crown won’t fight immigration battle
Cayman Islands Department of Immigration, George Town
(CNS): A legal challenge mounted by a number of local finance firms to the release of work permit data under the freedom of information law will not be opposed. The FOI request for the details of work permits held by hundreds of local firms was made by a number of private individuals and a local publisher but the data, which many believe would help out of work Caymanians, will not become public. The Legal Department is accepting the case made by Ernst & Young and three other firms that the information should not be public.
The data that was released listed the number of permits held by most local businesses, the nationality of those holding the permits, the post and salaries but no personal information was released. Nevertheless, EY along with Maples, KPMG and Butterfield Bank sought an immediate injunction and filed a legal action to get the data pulled from the public domain permanently. They claimed that the release of the information could enable their staff to deduce each other’s salaries.
The information only glimpsed the light of day for a short time when it was posted on Facebook but was later removed under court instructions.
According to correspondence between the lawyers representing the finance firms, the Attorney General’s Chambers and the courts, the Legal Department is not challenging the legal action and agrees that the decision to release the documentation under the information law was wrong.
But the lawyers are still seeking a legal hearing this week to have the court order a permanent injunction blocking the press and others who may still have access to the information from ever publishing the data.
Concerns have been raised about the action because the information is not personal and would demonstrate whether firms are complying with their business staffing plans and whether they are following the law when it comes to the diversity of their workforce. It would also indicate when permits are coming up for renewal so local job seekers can prepare and apply.
Government has said it is moving to introduce a work permit system that will be much more transparent to job seekers and will allow access to the sort of information that is currently being shut down. The premier has indicated that the proposed online development of the work permit process will allow access to much more information about permits.
But just last week he refused to accept a private member’s motion tabled by MLA Ezzard Miller asking government to make business staffing plans public documents. Alden McLaughlin said such data was commercially sensitive and there would be a “hue and cry” from the business community if government were to entertain such an idea, raising questions about how much real transparency government will ultimately permit in the new online system.
There is growing support in the community for the idea that if the government cannot police the work permit system, access to this type of data would help the wider public hold employers accountable to the law. Labour Minister Tara Rivers has also made it plain that she believes that all jobs, including those held by permit holders, should be in the public domain as job-seekers have a right to know about all of the potential career opportunities in their own country.
Category: Jobs, Local News
Since when was one’s salary not considered “personal information”?!
Since the Immigration Law required it to be published as a condition of seeking the work permit in the first place!
Sorry but what’s required to be advertised is a salary range. Not an individual’s salary.
It is also required the salary stay within the range.
A lot less expensive than having to defend law suits…would you prefer a professional civil service or the same old error strewn responses that cost millions to put right…it is not me seeing conspiracy, it is you needing to up your standards to an acceptable level!!
Reply to Driftwood
Why do you assume a lawyer saw it? Most freedom of information requests are made to departments who have a FOI designated person, they do not have to run every response via a lawyer, that would be very costly and time consuming. Imagine if every request had to be scrutinized by a lawyer as well as the FOI managers? FOI managers make decision to release records in routine matters, perhaps in this case it was just a simple mistake…why see conspiracy behind everything…human beings make mistakes…..
One of the problems is that the FOI manager jobs were mostly given to people with absolutely no practical understanding of FOI who were then allowed to muddle along and do the best they could – RCIPS is a classic example. The result of this is that FOI isn’t working properly – in fact in some areas it’s completely dysfunctional. While I do suspect some of it was deliberate all that’s happened here is a member of staff has made a decision that EY and the other firms don’t like so they’ve successfully challenged it. You could argue it’s just part of a learning process that one day might (I’m not holding my breath on this) eventually generate a fully functioning, consistent FOI policy within CIG.
This is utter foolishness, this information is not personal.
It is personal if you publish a legal secretary from Ireland who works at a law firm that makes 75k per month and there is only one legal secretary from that works for that form. Obviously or by process of elimination you are privy to someone’s personal information.
And yet the advert said 75k per year.
As a Caymanian I fail to see where me knowing what any institution is paying a foreigner. My salary is my business and I’m sure they feel the same way about theirs.
I don’t see how releasing it to the public would help unemployed Caymanians get a job.
But it would help determine if the legally mandated advertisements containing salary information were accurate.
I don’t see your point? the immigration department has this information and they are the ones that should be doing the checking, not the public?
And if Immigration are not be checking to protect the public, who is?
Hey, if government agencies are not doing the job and the public can do it for them let’s move onto vigilantes to deal with the gangstas. Makes sense right? Better than demanding Immigration and RCIPS actually enforce the law that we pay them to do.
People have demanded the police and immigration enforce the law for years. If people do not feel they are, of course some will try to take it into their own hands.What is that saying about if you want something done?
And this helps what?
Cayman appears to be hell bent upon destroying itself. Unbelievable.
Just pour another gin and tonic, sit back in the chair, watch and smile.
You can get all the injunctions you want in the Cayman Islands but thanks to the internet that won’t stop the material being made public by people based elsewhere. This is, very bluntly, all bloody silly.
“Concerns have been raised about the action because the information is not personal …”
That is a very bold statement to make….
From what was seen on FB The information was sufficient to have ascertained who certain (if not all) individuals were….just because there is no actual name does not mean that it is not “personal information”. Personal information is generally regarded as such if the identity is apparent, or can reasonably be ascertained. Given the information revealed, ie company, position, nationality, it would be easy to identify certain individuals on the list….
How the hell did it end up being released in the first place? This is confidential information and does not belong in the public domain- a good lawyer would have spotted that prior to an FOI release..but hey, its CIG. And then the inevitable climb down once the good legal eagles said “oh dear, you should not have done that, breach of confidence, breach of duty of trust, possibly even a human rights issue”…will they never learn?