Faafoi Kris: Identity Information Confirmation Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Faafoi Kris: Identity Information Confirmation Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 13 November 2012. Volume:685;Page:6565. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana) 
: 
 I thank the Hon Nathan Guy for taking a call earlier in the debate on this bill the Identity Information Confirmation Bill. He was very noble to the chairperson of the Government Administration Committee the Hon Ruth Dyson. He said that the committee had done a lot of work on the bill and good work was being done by the select committee. It was cool because that committee fixed the bill. It actually made a raft of changes within this bill and absolutely improved the bill. Mr Guy should be thankful for the fact that the select committee looked through the bill and made a number of significant changes to it. 
I did want to talk to Part 2 specifically clause 9(8) which gives an example. It states: “For the purposes of subsections (6) and (7) identity information may be treated as consistent with recorded information despite any variation between them because of pronunciation or punctuation.” It gives an example here within the bill. I just want to give a personal example. On my driver’s licence my surname is spelt F-a-’-a-f-o-i. But because of the trouble that the apostrophe has caused our family we decided when we are using it on a daily basis to get rid of the apostrophe. On my passport it has the apostrophe and when we have booked tickets to go overseas the ticket agent has removed the apostrophe. So we have actually had instances where we have turned up to check in for the flight and they have said: “No you can’t check in. Your passport says one thing and your ticket says another.” That was just because there was an apostrophe within the official document and the ticket has not had an apostrophe. That has been an issue for us so it is good to see that a practical implication of this bill in clause 9(8) is going to give a little bit of leeway for the likes of accents and hyphenations. The Faafoi family—the Fa’afoi family—will be very very happy about that. 
I also wanted to talk about clause 7 which is around the introduction of intermediaries. We think that as I said before when I was commenting on the good work done by the Government Administration Committee this is a very good improvement because the intermediaries will offer greater convenience and reduce compliance costs for those involved. During this debate I did ask Ruth Dyson whether or not maybe members of Parliament could be considered as intermediaries because from time to time we do have people who come into our electorate offices so that we can act as witnesses and confirm their documentation. That may have some implications for members of Parliament in terms of acting as intermediaries as has been pointed out throughout debate on Part 2 of this bill. 
I also wanted to have a quick look at clause 17 which pertains to the Privacy Commissioner and the fact that they may require periodic reports on the operation of this confirmation system. The clause is very short and I will read it out for you: “The Privacy Commissioner may at intervals not shorter than 12 months require the responsible officials to provide the Privacy Commissioner with a report on the operation of the confirmation service.” 
I do just want to go back to Part 1 of the bill and to clause 4 “Purpose”. Clause 4(b) states that we should “ensure that agencies can use and if necessary record confirmed identity information.” I think we should also have a look at inserting a word there or taking some action to make it “securely record confirmed identity information” because as we have seen in recent months there has been a number of privacy breaches within a number of Government agencies which have caused great concern to members of the public. Firstly there was the privacy breach at Work and Income where citizen journalist Keith Ng was able to access a kiosk that was freely available to any member of the public. He strolled into one of these offices got out a USB stick and pretty much helped himself to 7000 documents of very sensitive information pertaining to suicide cases to medical records to invoices for contractors and the like. I think most New Zealanders were aghast at the level of information that he was able to get his hands on at a publicly available kiosk in a Work and Income office. I think clause 17 giving the Privacy Commissioner the ability to ask for a report certainly would help in monitoring those kinds of privacy breaches that we have seen in the likes of Work and Income. 
Unfortunately Work and Income is not the only instance of a privacy breach that clause 17 may be useful for in the future. We have also had the account of the Inland Revenue Department. I may stand corrected and I may hear it from behind me but I believe 6300 individuals have been affected in the last year by breaches of privacy by the Inland Revenue Department. This is a department that does not like it when taxpayers get things wrong. The fact that in the last 12 months 6300 individuals have been affected by privacy breaches is not a good look. If the Inland Revenue Department were to be part of this at some stage in the future to help verify identification I think the fact that clause 17 would be there to allow the Privacy Commissioner to proactively look at any breaches of privacy would be a good thing. 
Unfortunately it does not stop there. We have also got the case of the Accident Compensation Corporation which I believe gave the details of 6748 individuals to one member of the public who went public in a big way and obviously caused a whole heap of ructions on the other side of the House. That is again another Government agency that is dealing with very sensitive information. It managed to release a lot of information of nearly 7000 individuals in one email. So clause 17 which would allow the Privacy Commissioner to look into that whenever he or she wanted to is a good part of what is contained in this bill. 
Unfortunately that is not where it ends. We have also got the Ministry of Education withNovopay and the fact that a number of teachers have had their private details or their pay details released to schools that they do not work at as another breach of privacy. Of course this is of much concern to the public. Clause 17 within this bill would obviously give the Privacy Commissioner some leeway to proactively look into those privacy breaches. 
We are painting a bit of a picture here that there is serious concern in the public about the level of security around information and the trust that the public have in Government departments and whether they can be trusted with the security of this information. The current state of affairs I think if we were to ask members of the public is that there is serious concern. But I think that a provision like clause 17 in Part 2 of this bill would ease some of those fears—the fact that the Privacy Commissioner could proactively look at any potential breaches or actual breaches of privacy within the realm of this bill. 
Privacy is very important and of course it is the confidence of the New Zealand public in Government agencies to hold private information secure that gives us a level of confidence in their ability to do their basic functions. I think it is fair to say that in the last year or so we have seen in a number of instances cases where the confidence of the New Zealand public has been pretty much rocked by what has gone on. I think probably the worst case that we have seen in the last 12 months is that of Work and Income where that information was so easily accessed. 
We are supporting this bill. I would like to thank whoever drafted clause 9(8) as that has eased the pain that I have felt for many years over a single apostrophe in our name. I also thank the Government Administration Committee for doing a lot of work to tidy up this bill from the state in which it arrived into the Parliament. 
The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 148 in the name of Jan Logie to clause 8 be agreed to.