Privacy Commissioner Michael Webster. Photo: VNP / Phil Smith
Privacy commissioner Michael Webster says the country's laws must be modernised to protect better New Zealanders.
Privacy complaints have risen by a fifth in the last financial year and serious privacy breaches notified by organisations have risen more than 40 percent, the commission's 2024/25 annual report said.
One case study in the report included screenshots of a school teacher's messages to their colleagues being sent to the principal, after their Google and Facebook accounts were left logged in on their work laptop, despite leaving the job.
At first, the school resisted the commission investigation, but later conceded it had breached the collection principles of the Act and interfered with all three teachers' privacy.
"We assisted the parties to reach a suitable resolution," the case study said.
Webster said, in the recent survey, 80 percent of respondents wanted more control over collection and use of their personal information, and about two-thirds worried for their or their children's privacy.
It was "easy to see why", Webster said.
"People are right to worry, as more needs to be done to improve New Zealander's privacy. The Privacy Act currently provides insufficient incentives for many organisations to understand or meet even the most basic privacy requirements."
The annual report said financial incentives were lacking "to take privacy seriously".
"This situation means that many agencies have a low level of understanding of the Act."
Webster's office is seeking amendments to the law in an attempt to up incentives and give people more power to make agencies delete their personal information.
"Our 2025 survey also showed strong support for strengthening the Privacy Commissioner's powers."
The annual report showed a 21 percent jump in complaints to almost 1600 and serious privacy breach notifications up 43 percent to almost 600.
The rise in volumes slowed down their response time since the year before.
"The key challenge facing us is the increasing volumes, and complexity of privacy breaches and complaints we are receiving."
However, almost 90 percent of complaints were still closed within six months. Its "fast resolve" track, which handled 1200 complaints, had helped.
All its investigations that were externally reviewed scored higher than 3.5 out of five.
One goal was to crack down more, the report said.
"Continuing to strengthen our compliance and enforcement function is a key area of strategic focus", alongside educating organisations about the law.
The report gave an example of holding Oranga Tamariki to account this year for "grievous" breaches, as RNZ reported, based on a review only released publicly almost a year after it was completed.
The office's government funding had dropped from $8.1m to $7.6m.
"Even when our funding was [previously] increased, it was to a level below what we had recommended to implement the significant new responsibilities and powers that the Act provided us."
Inflation and cost savings since had "subsequently diminished our funding in real terms".
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