Office of the Privacy Commissioner

We would like to thank the Office of the Privacy Commissioner for contributing this piece for the NetSafe website.  Privacy is a crucial issue when looking at the social impact of ICT and merits lots of discussion and increased public awareness.

Privacy, Anonymity and the Web

What is web privacy?

Maintaining your privacy on the web doesn’t necessarily mean being anonymous or secret. It does mean having the choice about sharing personal information or not. Privacy has a lot to do with:

• control over how your information is used;
• choice about whom you share your information with and how much;
• accountability: giving you the right to access the personal information a website or business holds about you.

Any website or business based in New Zealand must comply with the Privacy Act. The Privacy Act applies to the handling of all [personal information]¹  held by agencies in both the public and private sectors. Although there are some minor exceptions, all businesses from sole traders to multi-national conglomerates with a New Zealand branch are covered by the Act. So, New Zealand consumers have an advantage - at least when they deal with New Zealand-based businesses.

New Zealanders also have a practical remedy to pursue if things go awry. Contact the [Privacy Commissioner’s office]²  if you think your privacy has been infringed while on the net.

Twelve principles

Twelve information privacy principles are central to the Act and:

• address all aspects of collection, use, storage and disclosure of personal information and
• give people rights of access and correction. 

Website Privacy Statements: purpose and openness

Websites should alert people to a number of matters when information is collected from them including:

• the fact of collection;
• the purpose of collection;
• intended recipients of the information;
• contact details for the agency collecting and holding the information;
• if the collection is authorised or required by law - the particular law and whether supplying the information is voluntary or mandatory;
• consequences for people if all or part of the information is not provided;
• people’s rights of access to and correction of personal information.

Consumers can choose to complete a transaction with full knowledge of the implications for them, or can negotiate better terms, or click onto another site. 

Catching children in the web

Children are vulnerable to aggressive web marketing. Both parents and children may be unaware that “clickstream data” gathered by “cookies” provides marketers with bountiful information about them – and their family. Sometimes children may be aware, but feel the offer is simply too good to turn down. A recent US study on Internet use within families found that 72% of teenagers surveyed thought it was fine to disclose personal and family information to marketers in exchange for a gift.

New Zealand website users of all ages are protected as there is no age limit specified in the Privacy Act – it has blanket coverage.

The law overseas is also moving to recognise this risk. There is currently no general US federal legislation protecting consumers’ web privacy but children have been treated as a special case. The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act came into force in the United States in April 2000. The Act restricts the personal information that websites and Internet providers can ask of children under 13. Parental consent is required in other situations. The rules set out under the Act impose a sliding scale: the steps that the website must take in gaining parental consent vary according to the use the site intends to make of the data.

Net privacy tips:

• Read the privacy statements on websites. Ask for them on other sites. In particular, check whether your data will be shared with others companies or affiliates.
• If you give personal information to an overseas website, it will be much more difficult to take any action about a breach of privacy.
• Disclose only personal information that is necessary to the transaction you are carrying out.
• Take the same care with your personal information when communicating on the web that you would when dealing with people face-to-face: would you usually give your home address or phone number to someone you had just met?
• Use your instincts as a guide: disclose only as much information as you feel comfortable.
• Use privacy enhancing technology. Keep in mind that some tools will be more effective than others.

Contact us

Anyone can make a complaint to the Commissioner if they have been refused access to their own information, or feel that their privacy has been infringed in some way. Further information is available at: www.privacy.org.nz or by contacting the Privacy Commissioner’s enquiries line: 0800 803 909 (302 8655 within Auckland).

¹  Personal information includes any information about an identifiable living person, whether it is on a computer, in a paper file or in someone’s head.

²  Link to Privacy Commissioner’s website: www.privacy.org.nz