In healthcare settings, patients have a strong interest in knowing their privacy will be protected. Given that health information is often highly sensitive, in what circumstances is it reasonable for a health agency to disclose that information to others?

In June, our office awarded a Privacy Trust Mark to an independent contact tracing app called Rippl. We liked Rippl because it was created along Privacy by Design principles and it met the privacy-protective criteria of our Privacy Trust Mark programme.

We’ll be saying it for the rest of this year because we want everyone to be aware and ready for it when it happens: The new Privacy Act 2020 is coming into effect on 1 December 2020.

International transfers of personal data are under the spotlight again following a recent decision of the European Court of Justice that reviewed the legal means of transferring personal data from the EU to the United States: Data Protection Commissioner v Facebook Ireland and Max Schrems (Case C-311/18; 16 July 2020).

When is information your personal information? Does it include references to other people that just happen to be on a file with your name on it? These are the questions that the Human Rights Review Tribunal, and High Court of New Zealand have considered in the recent decisions in Taylor v Chief Executive of the Department of Corrections ([2018] NZHRRT 35 and Taylor v Chief Executive of the Department of Corrections [2020] NZHC 383.

Please note this blog post is more than one year old. Visit our Privacy and COVID-19 page for the most up-to-date information.

Clearview AI has been making international headlines again this month as Britain’s Information Commissioner’s Office and Australia’s Information Commissioner launched a joint investigation into its privacy practices. The company has also recently withdrawn from the Canadian market following an ongoing investigation in Canada. 

The parents of a profoundly disabled boy took a case to the Human Rights Review Tribunal [2020 HRRT 13] on their son's behalf in relation to the provision and accuracy of his health information while he was in the custody of IDEA Services.