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The Government is currently in the process of making changes to the Privacy Act.
The Minister of Justice has introduced a Bill amending the current Act on 20 March 2018.
Here's where you can read the text of the Privacy Bill.
Here's the Privacy Commissioner's media release and an accompanying blog post.
Anyone may make submissions when it goes before Parliament’s Justice Select Committee.
The reform proposals include stronger powers for the Privacy Commissioner, mandatory reporting of privacy breaches, new offences and increased fines.
In particular, the reforms aim to encourage private and public sector agencies to identify risks and prevent incidents that could cause harm.
The law reform process is the culmination of many years of preparatory work by the Law Commission and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner.
Our latest recommendations - which are in the Privacy Commissioner's Section 26 report to the Minister of Justice in February 2017 - can be found here.
By way of background, the Privacy Commissioner first reviewed the Privacy Act in 1998.
In July 2011, the New Zealand Law Commission completed a privacy review that began in 2006. Through the links below you can access resources on the Privacy Commissioner's and Law Commission's reviews.
There has been considerable law reform activity overseas as well. We have provided links to some recent resources from Australia and elsewhere.
Follow the links to read more and to download resources:
