Have your say about cross-border disclosures under the Privacy Act 2020

Overview

The Ministry of Justice is consulting on regulations to be made specifying countries for overseas disclosures under section 214 of the Privacy Act 2020 (the Act).

As part of this process, we invite you to provide your views on the countries you would find it most valuable to see prioritised and why.

Section 214 of the Act allows for regulations to be made prescribing countries that have comparable privacy safeguards to those in the Act.

If a country is prescribed, a New Zealand agency may transfer personal information to that country, under new Information Privacy Principle 12, without providing for other privacy safeguards (such as by contract or making their own assessment of the country’s privacy laws).

The Act provides that the Minister of Justice may recommend the making of regulations only if the Minister is satisfied that the countries have privacy laws that, overall, provide comparable safeguards to those in the Act. The Act allows the Minister to request advice from the Privacy Commissioner on whether a particular country provides such comparable safeguards.

As it will take time for each country’s privacy safeguards to be assessed, the Ministry (in consultation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade) will prioritise the countries to be assessed.

If you have any thoughts on which countries should be prioritised for assessment, we encourage you to contact us with feedback.

Feedback

You can provide your feedback by:

• using this consultation tool, or
• emailing IPP12consultation@justice.govt.nz.

Process for prescribing countries

More information on our process for prescribing countries, including next steps, is provided in the document below.

Privacy Act 2020 - prioritising countries for overseas disclosures [PDF, 797KB]

Start and close dates

Consultation is open from 27 October – 4 December 2020. Feedback closes at 5 pm on Friday, 4 December 2020.

How will we use your feedback

Your feedback will help inform the order in which countries are assessed.

Personal information and confidentiality

We will hold your personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act 1993.

We may be asked to release submissions in accordance with the Official Information Act 1982 and the Privacy Act 1993. These laws have provisions to protect sensitive information given in confidence but we can’t guarantee the information can be withheld. We won’t release individuals’ contact details. If you want your submission to be treated as confidential, we asked you to clearly indicate that in your submission.