Police in some overseas countries have begun using genealogical websites to solve crime. But are Police here using similar techniques to identify crime suspects? The answer is no.

Privacy Commissioner John Edwards was asked about workplace surveillance, settling employment disputes, job references and other topics at a Privacy and Employment Law seminar for employers and human resources managers in Wellington on 3 September 2018.

Genealogy is apparently the second most popular hobby in the United States, after gardening. In New Zealand, we’ve also seen a growing interest in tracing one’s ancestry. It has become a much discussed topic in online forums and the news media. Some of this boom has been driven by the ease with which people can submit the DNA information to find matches via genealogical websites such as Ancestry.com.

I recently attended a one-day Lawyers in Government Conference hosted by the Government Legal Network in Wellington. It was an action-packed day full of questions, debate and learnings. The panel discussion which most interlinked with our field was the session titled The Future is Now.

On 25-26 June 2018, Privacy Commissioner John Edwards and I attended the 49th Asia Pacific Privacy Authorities (APPA) Forum in San Francisco, California, hosted by the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

The second day at the 49th APPA Forum consisted of discussion sessions with various presenters from the state sector, academia, private legal practice and the global technology companies. 

An international think-tank, the Centre of Information Policy Leadership (CIPL), hosted a workshop on Accountable Artificial Information at Google headquarters.

One of the key observations in a new report on making our transport infrastructure more efficient is to not repeat information handling mistakes made overseas.