The New Zealand Privacy Act, passed in 1993, drew upon the OECD guidelines and learned from the experiences of European data protection laws and the Australian Privacy Act. The Privacy Act contains 12 information privacy principles governing the collection, use, storage and disclosure of personal information, however the information is held. It also has a principle dealing with unique identifiers and contains individual access and correction rights. The principles cover all agencies whether in the private or public sector, unless specifically excluded. Very few exclusions are contained in the law.
Parliament is one.
The news media in their news activities is another. The police are not excluded from the privacy law. If an information privacy principle is breached, and an individual is harmed or embarrassed as a result, a complaint to the Privacy Commissioner can be made, a settlement sought, or damages or an injunction obtained through a Tribunal. The Act also contains principles for public registers and guidelines for data matching. The Privacy Commissioner can issue codes of practice to modify the principles for a sector, activity or type of information.