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

This guest post was contributed by Richard Menzies, General Manager, Uber NZ, to mark Privacy Week. It is the first in our Working with Industry series of guest posts. The Working with Industry series do not necessarily reflect the views of our office and are published to inform and stimulate debate on topical privacy issues and developments.

Around the world, governments are rushing through legislation in an effort to legitimise the use of privacy-intrusive measures by security and intelligence services, says the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to privacy in his March report to the UN Human Rights Council (UNHCR).

I’m looking forward to the visit of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Privacy during Privacy Week in May this year. Professor Joseph Cannataci is the world’s first privacy investigator at this international level, appointed by the United Nations to the new position just last year. He will speak at our Privacy Forums in Wellington on 11 May and in Auckland on 12 May.

Every day New Zealanders hand over their personal information to government departments in exchange for a range of services, from benefits to drivers’ licences. From the citizen’s perspective, these transactions are based on trust that their information will be handled safely and securely.

It is exciting for us to be able to finally be able to tell everyone the Identity Conference is returning. The two day event will run two weeks after Privacy Week in May 2015. It will be the third time the Identity Conference has been run.