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Privacy Commissioner's 2018 annual report

Privacy Commissioner John Edwards has released the Office’s annual report for the year ending 30 June 2018.

The report covers a dramatic year as privacy laws around the world changed and high-profile data breaches were in the media spotlight.

A major focus for the Commissioner and his Office was the introduction of New Zealand’s own updated Privacy Bill to Parliament.

“This has been a unique opportunity to safeguard the rights of New Zealanders and modernise our privacy legislation,” Mr Edwards said.

“At the same time, we’ve continued to improve our everyday operations and work towards our overall goal of making privacy easy”.

Highlights for the year

Dispute resolution

  • We closed 706 investigation files.
  • We named one agency for non-compliance with the Privacy Act under our naming policy.

Codes of practice

  • We completed a review of the Credit Reporting Privacy Code and made 19 recommendations for making credit reporting fairer for consumers.

Policy

Outreach

  • We hosted our biannual Privacy Forum at Te Papa Tongarewa. The full day forum attracted over 300 attendees from across the economy.
  • We gave a total of 96 presentations this year to a range of external stakeholder groups.
  • We continued our active programme of regional visits.

Enquiries and education

  • We answered 9,147 enquiries; well over our expectation of 7,500.
  • We introduced a call centre service, live chat, and other changes to improve our enquiries function.
  • We responded to 345 media enquiries.
  • We launched our Privacy Trust Mark in May to recognise excellence in privacy-friendly products or services.

Breach notifications

  • Agencies reported 168 breaches to the security of personal information this year.

Law reform

  • We supported the Ministry of Justice with independent policy and drafting advice on the Privacy Bill.
  • We made a comprehensive submission to the Select Committee suggesting improvements to the Bill.

ENDS

Read the full report

Privacy Commissioner - Annual Report 2018

Media enquiries

Contact: Charles Mabbett 021 509 735 

Download a PDF version of this media release

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