Internet & Intranet Security Management - Risks & Solutions

even "cybercourts", the focus of any legal controls will be in individual jurisdictions and the New
Zealand model is as good a starting point as any other.
Privacy Legislation in New Zealand: A Brief History
In New Zealand it was the Government's own use of new information technologies (to store and
process information about citizens) which led, almost as a by-product, to measures to protect privacy.
The Wanganui Computer Centre Act of 1976 provided for a Privacy Commissioner to facilitate the
investigation of complaints relating to use of the Centre. In more recent times the Privacy
Commissioner Act 1991 (which arguably was inappropriately named as one of its principal objects
was to permit data matching between government agencies) provided for the appointment of a Privacy
Commissioner to monitor government data matching programmes and safeguard the rights of
individuals affected by the matching.
An important contributing factor in New Zealand's privacy consciousness has been the ground breaking
open government legislation of the early 1980s. 8 This legislation reversed a tradition of secrecy by
establishing that, in principle, all information held by the Government should be available to citizens as
a right. Part of this legislation provided for automatic access by individuals to information held about
them by government. It was only a short step from this position to argue for access to information
about individuals held by the private sector. It was probably inevitable that the culture of openness
fostered by the open government legislation would eventually permeate the private sector.
The Privacy Act 1993
The Privacy Act 1993 came into force on July 1 1993. 9 It repealed the Privacy Commissioner Act
1991, while taking over the Act's functions governing data matching. The purposes of the Act are
stated to be:
a) To establish certain principles with respect to-
(i) The collection, use, and disclosure by public and private sector agencies, of information
relating to individuals; and
(ii) Access by each individual to information relating to that individual and held by public and
private sector agencies; and
b) To provide for the appointment of a Privacy Commissioner to investigate complaints about