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Privacy: Put your oar in
Chances are if you’re interested in the internet, you’re also interested in privacy.
It’s a topic we take really seriously, and last week Jon, our CEO, spoke at a Privacy Commission forum – part of Privacy Awareness Week. We also recently sent through a submission to the Law Commission on the current review of the Privacy Act.
To ensure that all Kiwis get the chance to have a say and share their thoughts, the guys at the Law Commission are looking for more submissions, and have extended the deadline through to the end of May. If you have an interest in privacy you can still send in your thoughts, either as an individual or as the representative of a company.
All the info you need is on the Law Commission website. Warning – the main discussion paper is 500 pages – eeek! Look at the summary first, and you can just provide thoughts on a few of the questions that are near and dear to your heart.
So what does Trade Me think of the Privacy Act? We think the current Act generally works well, and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner does an excellent job. However, we also think a review is timely because the internet has changed the landscape about how we all view privacy and share information. It’s also not lost on us that both Google and Facebook have landed themselves in hot water on privacy issues (more info here and here).
The existing approach, which is based on a set of principles, seems flexible enough to deal with a wide range of issues in a rapidly changing environment, but we agree with several of the Law Commission’s suggested improvements. In particular, we support dropping the requirement for a complainant to show “harm” in order to establish their privacy has been breached. We also support giving the Privacy Commissioner more clout – including the power to conduct audits and issue enforcement notices to organisations.
We also reckon a new clause should be added to the Criminal Disclosure Act to protect personal information relating to innocent parties being unnecessarily shared in the criminal disclosure process.
The Privacy Commissioner, with added powers, should have a good toolbox to deal with the privacy challenges posed by emerging technologies and identity crime. These changes should also help identify and address risks earlier.
That’s our take, but you should make sure you have your say too - check out the Privacy Review Summary and tell the Commission what you think.
Also, feel free to share your thoughts on the message board.