Can passengers take photos and videos on a plane? An airline approached us seeking guidance because the increasing likelihood of passenger recordings made on board a flight has clear privacy implications for the air crew and the other passengers.

When you entrust your frail and vulnerable relative to the care of a commercial enterprise, you are entitled to expect a high standard of care. What happens when you suspect that standard is not being met?

Like all 90’s kids, my worst nightmare used to be that I’d forget to save my level progress in Zool. It’s safe to say that my perception has changed since then.

The World Wide Web was invented in 1989 at much the same time that final drafting touches were being made to a privacy bill to be introduced to New Zealand’s Parliament. By 1993, when the Privacy Act was finally enacted, there were – wait for it – an estimated 15 million users of the Internet worldwide. That same year, according to Down to the Wire, Nat Torkington created New Zealand’s first ‘real web site’.

When the Harmful Digital Communications Act (HDCA) passed in June of this year, it brought some changes to the Privacy Act. One of these changes was to section 56, which previously excluded personal, family and household affairs from coverage by the Privacy Act. The effect is that we can now investigate cases stemming from domestic affairs, where the subject matter would be “highly offensive to an ordinary reasonable person”.

What do you get when you gather members of the public to discuss and debate highly offensive material? We did exactly that the other week, and the end result was a good helping of common sense.

For 37 million people, the Ashley Madison data breach is a nightmare scenario. Extremely sensitive, personal information is in the public domain to be perused and abused by anyone takes a mind to do so.

When Cardiff man Clayton Kennedy posted an intimate photo of his ex-girlfriend on Facebook, he probably wasn’t thinking about the legalities of his situation. If he had, he (hopefully) would have thought twice, because this week he was given the dubious honour of being the first person to be sentenced under Britain’s new “revenge porn” laws.