I saw the announcement on Twitter last night:
New Privacy Bill introduced in Parliament! https://t.co/CmDYPacxgZ
— OPC NZ (@NZPrivacy) March 20, 2018
New Privacy Bill introduced in Parliament!
You can read the proposed bill here, and read the Privacy Commissioner’s initial comments about it here. As a clue to what is to come, Commissioner Edwards writes:
I’ll be pointing to the report I made to the Government in 2016 in which I made six recommendations including a power to apply for fines of up to $1 million for organisations, and $100,000 for individuals who seriously breach their obligations. This would bring us into line with Australia, and would begin to approach the sanctions available to my counterparts in Europe, Asia and elsewhere in the world.
We will also argue for the Law Commission’s recommendation to shift the privacy functions of the Director of Human Rights Proceedings into the Privacy Commissioner’s office in order to streamline the handling of privacy complaints.