MEDIA RELEASE

16 July 2010

New Zealand Privacy Commissioner Marie Shroff welcomed the public launch today of the APEC Cross Border Privacy Enforcement Arrangement (CPEA). New Zealand is a founding participant and co-administrator of the arrangement, along with the US Federal Trade Commission.

'Information now moves freely on a global scale', said Ms Shroff. 'Smaller countries like New Zealand are inevitably 'takers' of global technology and services from big players such as Microsoft, Facebook and Google. We need to be a part of international moves to protect our consumers' data in the global digital world.'

'This new arrangement should be welcomed both by consumers of countries involved and by business which seeks a consistent environment internationally for data protection and enforcement.'

The CPEA is the outcome of several years' work by an APEC Pathfinder project. The New Zealand Office of the Privacy Commissioner has been actively involved in the development of the arrangement and its implementation.

ENDS

Contact: Katrine Evans on 021 509 735.

Links to APEC documents:

for the News release from the APEC Secretariat see
http://www.apec.org/Press/News-Releases/2010/0716_ecsg_cpea.aspx
for a Fact sheet on the CPEA see: http://www.apec.org/About-Us/About-APEC/Fact-Sheets/APEC-Cross-border-Privacy-Enforcement-Arrangement.aspx