Last year the OECD did a survey* of budget changes in ‘privacy enforcement authorities’. It was revealing. I was taken aback when I saw where New Zealand sat in relation to our most commonly compared OECD economies.

The annual Global Privacy Enforcement Network (GPEN) Privacy Sweep is about to get underway and the theme is data breach notifications.

I didn’t click on the link straight away. It smelled a bit fishy. It had come in a text message which said a delivery agent tried to deliver a parcel – specifically parcel NZ2446612-19.

Investigating complaints is an important function of our office and a considerable part of our workload. When we receive a complaint, we make an initial assessment about what steps we will take next. In some circumstances, we will investigate. In other instances, our office may decline to investigate.

One of the most pervasive and persistent problems of privacy and data protection in the digital age is how to move the burden from consumers to read terms and conditions for services they are using, to the service providers to ensure they are clearly explaining the choices that consumers have, and the consequences for them.

In 2019, privacy policies are omnipresent. We’ve all seen them, we’ve all scrolled quickly to the bottom of the page, and we’ve all clicked “I accept,” granting us access to the wonders of the internet. But when you are presented with a privacy policy on a website, how often do you actually read it?

Modern consumers are unlikely to be harmed by faulty wiring in their toasters. They might have been 60 years ago when Consumer NZ was founded. The work of consumer organisations in independently testing and holding substandard producers accountable has been critical in getting us to this point.

A man complained to us last year after staff took a copy of his driver’s licence as he checked in to a hotel. The complainant was surprised that staff copied his licence and they couldn’t tell him why they needed the copy or how long they would keep it for.