Focus areas

An adult woman and a boy of about 11 sit on a soft couch looking at an iPad or other tablet. The woman’s hand is on the boy’s head and they’re both looking at the screen. Updated 11 March 2026

The Children's Privacy Project focuses on how children’s privacy is being protected and whether the rules protecting children’s privacy rights are working.

While the Privacy Act applies to everyone, it requires people to take extra care when collecting personal information about children and young people.

Download posters to help educate people about protecting children and young people's privacy online.

Education Sector Privacy Guidance

This guidance has been developed to help frontline workers in the education sector make sure personal information is properly used and protected. It uses a range of real-world situations to help people working in education make good privacy decisions with confidence.

The guidance covers areas such as:

To ensure this guidance is fit for purpose an expert advisory group made up of specialists across the education sector will help support us from development through to publication.

Information sharing guidance

Read our multi-agency meeting information sharing guidance, which includes a multi-agency information sharing protocol template.

Read our guidance that provides material that people need to confidently make good and timely decisions when they need to share information to protect children and young people’s wellbeing and keep them safe. It covers sharing under the Oranga Tamariki Act (wellbeing and safety), the Family Violence Act (protection from family harm) and the Privacy Act and includes useful tools such as quick reference guides and checklists.

There is no legislative barrier to information sharing when there is a wellbeing or safety concern for a child or young person and the Privacy Act does not stand in the way of protecting children from harm.

Our work is part of an integrated government response relating to the Dame Karen Poutasi review in 2022.

Read our information sharing guidance.

Photography and filming guidance

In May 2025, we developed photography and filming guidance. This guidance will help to empower them, their parents and caregivers to understand and exercise their privacy rights effectively. Read our children and young people: photography and filming guidance.

Other guidance

Previous work

April 2024

We released our report summarising the themes and messages we heard during our earlier consultation.

Read the full report (opens to PDF, 361 KB).
Read the short report (opens to PDF, 309 KB).

Late 2023

We consulted with government agencies, professionals who work with children (teachers, doctors, nurses, etc), and non-governmental organisations who advocate for children and young people. We asked them for their thoughts on how to improve children’s privacy in New Zealand.

September 2023

Launch of the Children's Privacy Project

Questions and how to contact us

If you have any questions about the Children’s Privacy Project or would like to be added to our Children’s Privacy Project updates email list, you can contact us at children@privacy.org.nz.