Young Jonathan: Privacy (Cross-border Information) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Young Jonathan: Privacy (Cross-border Information) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:653;Page:2345] 
JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth) 
: 
 There are a lot of bus stops between here and Auckland and there are a lot of bus stops around the world that our data travels through. Sometimes people at those places open packages in order to find out what they can see. The aim of the Privacy (Cross-border Information) Amendment Bill is to amend the Privacy Act 1993 in order to reduce the likelihood of New Zealand being used as a bus stop for the avoidance of other States’ tougher privacy laws. Where there is a hole in a net fish will swim there in order to get through to the other side. Right now New Zealand has a hole in its regulatory regime that is attracting fish that might have slipped through the privacy laws of their own countries. 
This bill brings consistency with overseas States’ requirements with regard to the transference of information and data across their borders. With consistency of standards come confidence and trust. It is important for New Zealand to be seen as a trusted trading partner especially with the European Union—we need its confidence. The changes proposed in this bill address the concern of some of New Zealand’s trading partners—especially European Union members—that overseas businesses have been locating operations and computer servers in New Zealand in order to benefit from our more flexible regulatory environment. 
The Privacy Act became law in 1993. Like the privacy laws in many other jurisdictions it was formulated in the 1990s and at that time personal information was largely stored manually. With the advent of the power and the reach of the Internet information about all of us is far more easily collected and disseminated throughout the world. An example of that is the spam scams that hit our email in-boxes on occasion. Even last week I received email correspondence yet again from Nigeria where people have copious amounts of money that they want to distribute around the world to worthy individuals. They want to bestow the magnificence of their generosity on such people. Well they found me—although I do not consider myself worthy enough to benefit from their spare millions of dollars. I suggest that members on the other side of the House would be far more worthy than I. So I will not be sending the Nigerians my bank account number. Fortunately I am not a member of Twitter so I am no twit. 
The Nigerian letter—also called the 419 fraud Nigerian bank scam or Nigerian money offer—originated in the early 1980s as the oil-based Nigerian economy declined. Several unemployed university students first used the scam as a means of manipulating business visitors interested in shady deals in the Nigerian oil sector before targeting business people in the West and later the wider population of the planet. Scammers in the early to mid-1990s targeted companies sending scam messages via letter fax or telex. But then the spread of email and easy access to email harvesting software significantly lowered the cost of sending scam letters by utilising the Internet and greatly increased the opportunity that spammer-scammers had. Hence the invitation that I received—and I am sure some of the other members of the House received it—last week. Somehow the spammer-scammers have accessed nearly every email address I have had. 
In the 2000s the 419 scam has spurred imitations from other locations in Africa Asia and Eastern Europe. More recently there have been imitations from North America and Western Europe—mainly the UK—and even from our cousins across the Ditch in Australia. The Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007 now deals with that sort of practice but what it highlights is the open window that the Internet has provided to the world to access our private information. The collection use storage and disclosure of one’s personal information can happen unnoticed across borders and at lightening speed. 
I was visiting my brother who is a medical researcher in San Diego in the early 1990s. We went to a famous American department store called Sears where there was a computer available to shoppers. One typed in the name of a friend who was getting married and up came a list of preferred gifts—a Ferrari a Porsche and a red Corvette soft-top would be on my list. So I typed in my name. Surprisingly—and I say “Surprisingly” because I did not think that I was a person with a very common name—up came eight Jonathan Youngs who were all getting married in the US. I do not know how they managed to steal my identity. I did not know that I was as prolific as that. I must admit I left the department store dazed and depressed both at the same time. 
Tim Macindoe 
: I went to all eight before I found you. Cost me a fortune too! 
JONATHAN YOUNG 
: That is right—broke but depressed at the lack of my uniqueness. That too demonstrates the power of computerisation and the ability to identify people’s information across the world. 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: You can even Twitter! 
JONATHAN YOUNG 
: Exactly. 
The main purpose of this bill is to assure our international business partners that their customers’ personal information will be protected when dealing with businesses in New Zealand. That is a very important thing—we need to give our international traders confidence that they can trust our systems. The bill is intended to ensure that personal data that originates overseas and is sent to New Zealand is subject to New Zealand’s privacy protection. The amendments dealing with cross-border data transfers aim to substantially reduce the likelihood of New Zealand being used as an intermediary for the avoidance of the privacy laws of other countries. We are stitching up the hole in the net so to speak. The amendments aim to increase competitive advantage for trade between New Zealand and the European Union and with our other current and developing trade partners. 
The bill has wide support. We note that the Law Commission and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner agree that the bill should go ahead at this time. The Privacy Act makes it clear that there are important trans-border dimensions to the application of privacy legislation. This bill is a useful addition to the Act. The Law Commission’s view was sought on the bill and it has indicated that it supports it. We want and need to protect our data here in New Zealand and to protect what comes to New Zealand from around the world. We need to repair the hole in the net so that international traders feel confident in the protection we offer. Then New Zealand businesses can become and will continue to be the trusted traders and partners they seek them to be. I support this bill and I commend it to the House.