The privacy commissioner, Timothy Pilgrim, has launched a federal court challenge to a ruling that a journalist was not entitled to access parts of his personal mobile phone data.

The landmark challenge is believed to be the first time the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner has sought to appeal a case before the federal court.

Former Fairfax journalist Ben Grubb had been involved in a lengthy dispute with his mobile phone provider, Telstra, to gain access to a range of data held by the company about his phone use.

In May 2015 Pilgrim ruled that Telstra had failed to comply with Australian privacy law when it refused to hand over internet protocol address information, edited versions of incoming call records and website URL information.

But the decision was overturned on appeal by the administrative appeals tribunal, which ruled the information was not considered to be “personal information”.

In a statement on Thursday, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner said that Pilgrim, who is now the acting information commissioner, had appealed the ruling.

“On 18 December 2015 the tribunal set aside the commissioner’s determination, substituting a finding that no breach of NPP 6.1 had occurred,” the statement read.

“On 14 January 2016, having considered the AAT’s decision, the privacy commissioner filed a notice of appeal from a tribunal to the federal court of Australia.”

Grubb has not been joined as a party to the proceedings, but tweeted that we welcomed the appeal.

Great that the @OAICgov is appealing the Telstra metadata case https://t.co/6jbh35yQoO Told them I couldn't join as no time these days — Ben Grubb (@bengrubb) February 11, 2016

The case is likely to have significant ramifications for how requests for information under the privacy act can be determined, particularly for digital information.

In the AAT decision deputy president Stephanie Forgie took a narrow approach to defining personal information. She said that information such as IP and URL data were too remote to be considered personal information.

“That data is no longer about Mr Grubb or the fact that he made a call or sent a message or about the number or address to which he sent it. It is not about the content of the call or the message. The data is all about the way in which Telstra delivers the call or the message. That is not about Mr Grubb,” she wrote.