The law has changed.

The Privacy Act 2020 introduces greater protections for individuals and some new obligations for businesses and organisations. The changes include the requirement to report serious privacy breaches to the Privacy Commissioner and to affected people. The Privacy Commissioner has new powers to help people access their own information and to require businesses and organisations to comply with the law. There are increased fines for organisations that don’t comply, and there are new rules when sending personal information overseas. (ref: https://privacy.org.nz/privacy-act-2020/campaign)

The New Zealand Privacy Commissioner has created a detailed table comparing the Privacy Act 2020 with the Privacy Act 1993. The table is a section-by-section breakdown of both Acts, showing the changes at a granular level. You can view the table here: Comparing the Privacy Acts - 1993 and 2020.

Once the Privacy Bill passed the Committee of the Whole House stage in Parliament on 3 June, with the House sitting under urgency, our subject matter expert, employment lawyer Julia Shallcrass of KiwiBoss, reviewed the amendments so we could be ready to provide our learners with the updated content on the day the amended Act comes into force, today. We have updated the current course to minimise the impact on our learners.

Kineo’s Privacy and the Workplace: NZ course has been developed to provide organisations with an understanding of New Zealand privacy requirements. It is critical that organisations in New Zealand understand privacy rights and how the law requires personal information to be protected.

Privacy is a human right set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Privacy is a person's right to protect their personal information. The Privacy Act controls how 'agencies' collect, hold, use and give access to personal information. Under the Act, most New Zealand employers are 'agencies'. Organisations have a responsibility to protect personal information. This means doing everything reasonable to stop the loss, access, use, disclosure or other misuse of information. Organisations should take reasonable safeguards to protect personal information relating to storing information, sending information and destroying information.

The course has been designed to provide training for all staff in all New Zealand organisations and provides an understanding of: 

• the right to privacy and why it requires protection
• what personal information is
• how privacy is protected in New Zealand and how organisations can use personal information, and
• what you can do to help protect your own – and other people’s – privacy.

Duration: 40 minutes

Unit ID – 26956