Minister of Internal Affairs Peter Dunne said today that he wanted the Clean Slate Act reviewed to make sure it was working properly.

Yahoo, Google, Dropbox, Facebook, Microsoft, Trade Me and others do it. We think it would be a good thing if many New Zealand companies decided to do it too.

Complaints are valuable assets for every organisation. There is no better way to highlight and fix problems in an organisation’s systems and processes. This is what we tell the agencies we investigate, and many of them take the opportunity to learn from complaints to improve their practices. It’s also a view that was echoed in an excellent Auditor-General report about ACC’s complaint’s processes.   

Our office is proud of the work we do in the area of dispute resolution. Where it is appropriate, we try and bring complainants and respondents together, in person or by phone, to resolve privacy disputes. Last year, we closed 827 complaint files and of these, nearly half were achieved with a settlement between the parties involved.

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.

Usually, peoples’ personal relationships aren’t our concern, but a story that ran yesterday caught our attention.

Does working at the Office of the Privacy Commissioner make you paranoid? Well, it’s not quite that bad, but a New Zealand Herald article about cybercrime and identity theft prompted me to think about the number of my online profiles that use, or are linked to, my real identity.

As the working year gets underway, I’m holding on to that summer feeling of long hot days by the beach, walks in the bush, swims in the river, kayaking in the surf and enjoying fresh fish and new season corn for dinner. Far from city life, with few people around and everyone pretty relaxed, you could be forgiven for thinking you don’t need to worry about your privacy, especially privacy online.