NZNO seeks your feedback on this bill which reforms the Privacy Act 1993. The intent of the Bill is to promote people's confidence that their personal information is secure and will be treated properly, given changes to the way this is used with the rise of the Internet and the digital economy. The Bill implements recommendations made in the Law Commission's 2011 review of the Act including reforms that give the Privacy Commissioner a stronger role and help address privacy risks earlier. The key changes are:

• mandatory reporting of privacy breaches to the Privacy Commissioner and to affected individuals;
• the Commissioner will be able to issue compliance notices;
• strengthening cross-border data flow protections;
• new criminal offences: it will be an offence to mislead an agency in a way that affects someone else’s information and to knowingly destroy documents containing personal information where a request has been made for it;
• Commissioner making binding decisions on access to information requests; and
• strengthening the Privacy Commissioner’s information gathering power.

Please find the Bill here: https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/bills-and-laws/bills-proposed-laws/document/BILL_77618/privacy-bill

Send feedback to marilynh@nzno.org.nz by 17 May 2018.