Queensland Consolidated Acts Queensland Consolidated Acts(1) Every officer of the department engaged in giving effect to this Act and every person engaged by the chief executive in giving effect to this Act shall, as soon as is practicable after the commencement of section 31 of the Adoption of Children Act Amendment Act 1983 or, if the officer or person first becomes a person of that description after the commencement of that section, within 7 days after the officer or person becomes a person of that description, take and subscribe the prescribed oath of confidentiality or make the prescribed affirmation of confidentiality and abide by his or her oath or affirmation.
(1A) An oath or affirmation referred to in subsection (1) may be administered or, as the case may be, taken by any justice of the peace.
(2) Except where it is otherwise prescribed by this Act, the records of the chief executive or of the tribunal relating to any matter or proceeding under this Act or under the law of Queensland applicable to adoptions at any time or any proceeding with respect to a child available for adoption shall not be open to inspection by any person other than--
(a) an officer of the department, in the ordinary discharge of the officer's duties; or
(b) any other person engaged in giving effect to this Act, in the ordinary discharge of the duties of the person's engagement; or
(c) any person authorised by the chief executive (in the case of the chief executive's records) or the president of the tribunal (in the case of the tribunal's records) for the purpose of conducting a bona fide research program where that person has given to the chief executive or, as the case may be, the president an undertaking in writing to preserve the identity of and confidentiality in relation to individual persons to whom the records relate; or
(d) in the case of a record of the tribunal--a party to the proceeding before the tribunal to which the record relates.
(3) An officer of the department, or other person engaged in giving effect to this Act shall not disclose or be required to disclose to any person, court or tribunal information that--
(a) is likely to allow identification, by the natural parents of a person who has been adopted, of that person or the person's whereabouts; or
(b) is likely to allow identification, by the natural parents of a person who has been adopted, of the adoptive parents of that person or their whereabouts; or
(c) is likely to allow identification, by the adoptive parents of a person who has been adopted, of the natural or adoptive parents of that person or their whereabouts; or
(d) is likely to allow identification, by a person who has been adopted, of the person's natural parents or their whereabouts;
except where this Act otherwise permits, expressly or impliedly, or where such identification is unavoidably incidental to the adoption of the person who has been adopted.
(3A) In subsection (3)--
adoptive parents has the meaning assigned to it in part 4A.
(4) An officer of the department or any other person engaged in giving effect to this Act shall not disclose to any person--
(a) information that to the officer's knowledge is contained in the records of the chief executive or the tribunal; or
(b) information that has come to the officer's knowledge in connection with the officer giving effect to this Act;
except--
(c) where the disclosure is to facilitate giving effect to this Act and does not constitute a contravention of subsection (3); or
(d) where the chief executive is satisfied that the disclosure is for a reasonable purpose in the circumstances and does not constitute a contravention of subsection (3); or
(e) where the disclosure is made under the authority of an order of the Supreme Court made in exercise of jurisdiction, which is hereby conferred upon the court, to make such an order upon the application of the chief executive if the court is satisfied that the disclosure proposed is necessary in the interests of the health of any person or in furtherance of medical research; or
(f) where the disclosure is to the Supreme Court for the purposes of a proceeding under section 16.
(4A) Subsection (4) applies to a person referred to in subsection (2)(c) as if the person were an officer of the department.
(5) Subsections (3) to (4) do not operate so as to prejudice the entitlement of any person referred to in subsection (2) to access to records of the chief executive or the tribunal.
(6) A person who--
(a) permits access to the records of the chief executive or the tribunal to any person except one authorised by this Act to have such access; or
(b) not being authorised by this Act to have access to the records of the chief executive or the tribunal or to a particular part thereof, inspects any part of those records or, as the case may be, that part or attempts so to do; or
(c) makes a disclosure that is in contravention of this section;
commits an offence against this Act.
(7) A court shall not convict a person of an offence defined in subsection (6)(c) if it is satisfied that the disclosure consists in a publication to which section 45(1) is expressed by section 45(2) not to apply.