OPC has teamed up with South Auckland community initiative UpSouth for this year’s Privacy Week (13-17 May).

Once upon a time, we didn’t collect data about people because we didn’t have the technical means to do so. Computers weren’t fast enough, sensors weren’t small enough, and storage wasn’t cheap enough. As technology has continually improved, it has enabled a superabundance of data – more data being collected means more data is being stored and transmitted, which means more data is being used.

We see it everywhere – people on buses working on their laptops, people sitting poolside reading personnel files – and we wonder if these conscientious people are aware that the information can be seen easily by those around them.

Cameron Slater, a well-known blogger, published a number of posts about business consultant Matthew Blomfield on the Whale Oil site. The posts were released between May–October 2012. There were additional publications containing personal information about Mr Blomfield on other blog sites.

The New Year is often a time for people to think about their health plans. And while “new year, new me” might not extend to “new health insurance”, your patients may be considering taking out or renewing their health or life insurance policy.

An agency reported a recent data breach to us and it has given our office another example of how some attempts at redaction are bound to fail.

Our laws around DNA are out of date. They were written in 1995 and amended in 2003 and 2009. But science keeps moving swiftly on, and DNA is being used in ways which were never imagined. Society has also moved on and there are concerns our current laws do not adequately recognise concerns about privacy, human rights, and tikanga Māori.

The most common complaints we investigate relate to individuals trying to access their personal information. Some of these requests are “empty-your-pocket” requests to the agency – in other words, requests for all the information held about the person concerned by the agency.