About us

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner (OPC) is an Independent Crown Entity. We are funded by the state but independent of Government or Ministerial control.

OPC has a wide range of functions, which are listed in section 17 of the Privacy Act 2020.

Our key areas of work include:

Making public statements on matters affecting individual privacy.
Investigating complaints about breaches of privacy.
Building and promoting an understanding of the privacy principles.
Monitoring and examining the impact that technology has on privacy.
Developing codes of practice for specific industries or sectors.
Examining draft legislation for its possible impact on individual privacy.
Monitoring data matching programmes between government departments.
Inquiring into any matter where it appears that individual privacy may be affected.
Receiving reports of notifiable privacy breaches.
Monitoring and enforcing compliance with the Privacy Act.
Reporting to government on matters affecting privacy, both domestic and international.

Our Functions

Our privacy laws

We regulate the Privacy Act 2020.

The Privacy Act applies to almost every person, business, and organisation in New Zealand. The Act includes privacy principles that guide how personal information can be collected, used, stored and disclosed.

The Privacy Act 2020 came into force on 1 December 2020 and became New Zealand's main privacy law. The Act primarily governs personal information about individual people, but the Privacy Commissioner can consider developments that affect personal privacy more widely. To learn more, read our Privacy Act 2020 page.

Separately, the courts have developed a privacy tort, which is the right for one person to sue another for breach of privacy (e.g. Hosking v Runting). Many other statutes set out specific rules to protect privacy or confidentiality in particular situations.

Other statutes or other rules allow personal information to be shared. For example, personal information on the electoral roll is publicly available.

The New Zealand Media Council is an independent forum that hears privacy complaints about the press and digital media platforms, which are not covered by the Privacy Act.

In addition, the Broadcasting Standards Authority hears privacy complaints in relation to broadcast material.