The controversy embroiling Centrelink, the Australian government agency that provides welfare payments, shows no sign of abating as a public and political backlash continues over its apparent mishandling of a debt recovery programme.

What happens when an agency’s record of your identity conflicts with who you actually are? This is the question we grappled with in an Immigration New Zealand (INZ) case that we recently referred to the Director of Human Rights Proceedings.

The biggest thing in the privacy world just now seems to have exploded into the collective consciousness out of nowhere. For those of you with TLDR (Too Long Didn’t Read) syndrome, here’s the spoiler. The issue is not as clear cut as you might think. I’d like to hear a range of views about how we should approach this in New Zealand.