Identity Information Confirmation Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Identity Information Confirmation Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 13 November 2012. Volume:685;Page:6549. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Identity Information Confirmation Bill 
In Committee 
Part 1 Preliminary provisions 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills) 
: 
 It would have given me great pleasure to say that the Identity Information Confirmation Bill like the previous bill that we have been discussing has been through the Government Administration Committee recently and that I was pleased to support its progress back through the Committee but actually that is not the case. The Identity Information Confirmation Bill was actually referred to the select committee on 19 October 2010—2010. That was over 2 years ago. The closing date for submissions was 1 December 2010. The committee received and considered 13 submissions and heard three. It received I am sure extremely competent advice from the Department of Internal Affairs. Now 2 years and 1 month later we get this bill back. What has the Minister of Internal Affairs been doing in that time I wonder? 
There does not appear to be much wrong with the bill. There do not appear to be any further changes from the select committee. The select committee made some very good changes actually—entire sections were rewritten. I have to say that the commentary on the bill is very clear as well. But to be frank there is not much to it Minister and I am not quite sure why it has taken the Government such a long time to get it to this final stage. Perhaps it does not consider identity information confirmation important but I do. 
We did have some departure from our total agreement with this bill but not to the point where we decided to vote against any particular provision. I just want to draw the Committee’s attention to the fact that during the debate at the select committee the Labour members would have preferred to delete clause 18 from the bill. Again this is quite similar to the comments that we have just been making about the previous legislation in regard to the protection from liability of various individuals. In this case Subpart 4 of the Identity Information Confirmation Bill says “There is no cause of action against the Crown or a Minister of the Crown or the responsible officials or a delegate of the responsible officials or an employee or a contractor of the department to recover damages for any loss or damage that is due directly or indirectly to the use of the confirmation service for an identity information check.” We were a little concerned that this was really absolving the Crown the Ministers and any departmental officials who were involved from any responsibility and that is not always a good thing. Sometimes it is important to say that it is better for an event to be owned up to to be claimed and then to move on from that. But in this case it is just absolving them of all liability. 
So Labour members expressed their concern about that at the time but we had advice through a formal submission from the Legislation Advisory Committee. That committee persuaded us actually that this was a good provision to have in and that our objections were outweighed by the arguments that it put to the select committee. That was our only major concern in relation to this legislation in terms of the specifics of it. 
It is again a pretty straightforward bill. It is quite similar in title but not in content to the bill that we have previously progressed. We have just progressed the Electronic Identity Verification Bill. This is the Identity Information Confirmation Bill. But what this bill does is ensure that there is a service that allows agencies to confirm an identity that has been provided to them by an individual. So if somebody says that this is my identity then there is a service that allows for confirmation of that identity. 
 I had not really reflected on how many alterations a person might go through during their life in terms of what is on their birth certificate and what their common name in use might be but that is not therefore in the documentation that they might otherwise be able to provide to prove that person’s identity. So if you are born with the name of Kris Faafoi—seeing as everyone is dropping that name tonight—but you decide that you might prefer to be called Freddy Faafoi for some reason then your birth certificate still says Kris but all your rates demands your power bills your phone bills whatever are all in the name that you use most Freddy. So quite common situations can actually cause quite a lot of difficulty. 
I think that the officials from my reading of the deliberations not only went to the most common areas where this could be problematic but they also looked at the areas that might be more unusual and ensured that this is a robust piece of legislation that will provide access to that service of verification for people regardless— 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National) 
: 
 I would like to join with the chair of the Government Administration Committee in commending this Identity Information Confirmation Bill. It has been under consideration and thought for some considerable time and no I do not have an explanation for that but I am not the Minister. 
The bill is a useful bill and it is an adjunct in many ways to the bill that we had been discussing earlier in the evening. The point that the Hon Ruth Dyson made I would just like to refer to because the Opposition members of the select committee did oppose the clause in the bill—clause 18 I think it is—that protects the Crown Ministers and officials from liability as a result of this service unless they acted in bad faith in which case there is no protection for them; or if they were grossly negligent there is no protection for them. But this clause has been retained on the basis that the service is provided on an opt-in basis and contains numerous protections for the members of the public. It was an interesting one to debate and what I particularly like about select committees especially with the officials that we had in this particular case was that they were quite comfortable about giving us examples of when this service could be used. 
The bill helps combat identity fraud by preventing the use of fake identities and extends the use of a web-based data validation service to public and private sector agencies on a strictly need-to-know basis. It allows agencies to check whether the identity information presented by a customer is consistent with that held by the Department of Internal Affairs through citizenship registers the passport database and the various registers of the Births Deaths and Marriages registry office. As the Hon Ruth Dyson has just said there are many occasions when small identity changes occur. But it did make me reflect back on my own experience of having my bankcards nicked and— 
Kris Faafoi 
: You’ve had a bad run haven’t you? 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE 
: I have I have. Well I have lived a full life Mr Faafoi. A full life protected from nothing—protected from nothing. But when I had these cards stolen I somewhat naively told the police that they would be of little use to the person who had stolen them because I had already reported them as stolen so they would be invalid. They gazed at the sky they rolled their eyes and they said “We’ll see you in about a month. The cards will already have been sold and they will already be being used.” And it was I think about 6 weeks later that I started getting final demands for payment of accounts. The accounts had been opened using my cards as an identity— 
Kris Faafoi 
: That’s your story anyway. 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE 
: —and I am sticking with it—in shops that I had never ever been near. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Which of the member’s identities? Which of the member’s identities? 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE 
: I am beginning to wonder whether I should have embarked on this line but it is very very important because we take things like security of identity as a given whereas it is not. It is not like that at all. It is not a nice honest life out there and no matter how naive I may be there are people who want to do you ill. 
This bill will help ensure compliance with the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009 and that requires banks and other financial institutions to undertake more comprehensive know-your-customer checks. It is an important tool in preventing identity fraud and reducing compliance costs. 
There will be many other aspects of this bill which is a nice tidy little bill. It will be very effective—I am pretty sure it will. Again the officials applied themselves I think assiduously in ensuring that the questions diligently raised by members of the Government Administration Committee were answered to the fullest extent—they were assiduous and diligent. I would hate anyone to think that this committee under Ruth Dyson’s chairmanship was in any way— 
Hon Annette King 
: Impeccable! 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE 
: It was thank you for that. It was certainly not in any way casual about its approach. Although I can appreciate Opposition members saying “Oh it would be different if it came up now.” I am not completely sure that it would because I am not sure how much more diligent we could have been than we were. I will leave it at that because there will be other aspects of this bill that will come up under Part 2 that I will wish to speak on. Thank you. 
CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South) 
: 
 I would like to say in the Committee stage on this bill the Identity Information Confirmation Bill that the first thing to do is to agree with the member opposite me about identity fraud and how important it is that we address that issue particularly in the digital environment. It is a growing issue. It will continue to be an issue and we have to have measures in place to deal with it. That is why having not sat on the Government Administration Committee and listened to all the submissions but having read some of them and having thought about the issue I certainly acknowledge the importance of it and the fact that we have to keep abreast of fraud in whichever manifestation it appears. We have heard that the Privacy Commissioner was satisfied with the legal safeguards and the controls in this bill. 
We know that it is a serious and growing problem and I am sure a number of speakers have said how many millions of dollars it costs the country as every year about 2000 New Zealanders are affected by online scams. No doubt if I asked people to put up their hands and say whether they had been scammed or they knew somebody who had been probably most people would in one way or another even if it is by having your Twitter account hacked by clicking on one of those connections that takes you to a rather unsightly you know unseemly image. That then means that all of your followers—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Some of them are sightly but unseemly. 
CLARE CURRAN 
: I guess it depends on which perspective you come from. All of your followers then get a message from you saying that they are being hacked and people are looking at or saying terrible things about them online etc. Although there is a growing awareness amongst the population about these scams including the scams that come from people purporting to be banks etc. and people are becoming more careful I think about what they do click on online there is still always going to be a percentage of people who are terribly affected by these sorts of practices. So I think it is really important that we acknowledge the importance of the issue. 
When I spoke about this bill in its second reading I said there were two things that we needed to take into account. One is the prevention as I have just said of identity fraud. The other is balanced with the ability of people to go about their business without feeling under surveillance which I know is one of the issues raised by the Greens as being an important thing and that is something we need to take into account as well. Also we have to be mindful as I said in my speech on the previous bill of the systems management that is occurring around the Government agencies’ use of information and communications technology and the security of that. I suppose that is what I want to go to here. I think it is absolutely critical that there is a robustness across Government systems and I am pleased to see that the Minister for Communications and Information Technology is in the chair because there is no doubt that security of information the privacy of individuals’ information and confidence in the system used to manage those systems is absolutely paramount. 
 I made the comment in the debate on the previous piece of legislation that went through this Committee the Electronic Identity Verification Bill that in order for us to be confident about that we have to know that we can trust the agencies that are interacting with citizens out there. I think actually that that has been compromised in recent weeks. I think that there are four major agencies in our Government that have been compromised. We have heard the issues around that. In order to address that I actually introduced a member’s bill last week called the Electronic Data Safety Bill which is around ensuring that there is a systematic inquiry into breaches in agencies around privacy so that the adequacy of information management can be trusted. This is what it comes down to: can the citizens of New Zealand trust the systems that are in place that are managing information including their private information and that can make that information public to people that it should not be made public to? 
What I am saying is that before we pass pieces of legislation like this that are worthy and important because identity fraud is important we should actually have a good look at the adequacy of those information systems that we do that through an inquiry and we then ensure that we put in place systematic information management across Government which includes a governance system that is not just agency based so that that management system transcends the individual agencies and then we look at these pieces of legislation that are coming before the House. 
I have sought industry views around this which is why I am pleased to see the Minister in the chair. I am being told that what we need is something more than what we have got. This is ultimately about public confidence. It is about confidence in the security of the information and the security of the systems that we have got which will be restored only when the public can see that the ministries and the departments are working together and bending over backwards to ensure that that data is secure. Mistakes happen. There is no doubt that mistakes happen. In any development of any new system etc. of course there are going to be mistakes. But on the kind of scale that we have seen—in the last few weeks particularly—it is just not on. The mistakes are systemic and they are not just in one ministry or one department; they are across a number of agencies. 
I am being told that we know that this is an issue that this does need to be addressed at a different level. That might involve setting up a new part within for instance the Department of Internal Affairs with—and I think it is important to say this—some sort of dotted line to the Privacy Commissioner. This is about privacy and people feeling that their information is secure. This new part would look after the rule-setting for Government agencies and public information have the power to advise and require certain things before any system is launched and investigate and test post any launch. I think it is important to note that the private sector has quite a lot of experience in these things. I think that the Government and the agencies affected should be looking outwards right now as to what experience they can draw on to bring in that experience and see what can be done about this issue before we put these pieces of legislation to the House. Ultimately they are about providing new systems or extending systems that are small and making them bigger. It is about the privacy of New Zealand citizens’ information. That information and the trust that that information is not going to be abused and misused is really important. I would hope that the Committee recognises that. 
I would like to see that future developments around how these sorts of developments are rolled out do ensure that there are provisions around security of personal data and that they are put to the top—put to the top. They are not at the bottom and they are not in the middle; they are at the top of the requirements list. There should be penalties around them not being carried out. I am not talking necessarily about penalties to individual companies. I am talking about accountability at the highest level—about the governance level which is at the political level as well. That is where it should reside and that is what we should be talking about today in the Committee rather than about introducing yet another piece of legislation that is piecemeal and that is not part of a wider plan around the security of our information. 
KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana) 
: 
 Thank you for the chance to speak to Part 1 of the Identity Information Confirmation Bill. It is a bill that has a similar title to the previous bill discussed in the Committee the Electronic Identity Verification Bill but it sets out to do something vastly different. It sets out to combat identity theft. The crime of identity theft is not a new one but I guess that in the digital age when we have much easier access and faster access to information the prevalence of identity theft is increasing. 
Some research said that there is an average of around 2000 New Zealanders affected by online scams identity theft credit card fraud and viruses each day. We have already heard from one member from across the Chamber Mr Chris Auchinvole about his personal experience when his bankcards were swiped. Unfortunately for him being a victim of crime the perpetrators sought to max out his credit card. He said on the record that he was the recipient of many final demands for the fun that the criminals had with his credit card. But it is a serious issue. In 2008-09 there were some statistics to show that there were more than 7000 incidents of fraud and false pretences using bankcards. In 2009 the police identified 900 cases of identity fraud here in New Zealand but they thought that that was just a fraction of what was going on but not being detected. That was some 3 years ago. 
I think it was my colleague the Hon Ruth Dyson the able chair of the Government Administration Committee who said that these people are trying to use common situations to steal identities. That is what this is really all about. It is about the use of things like passports or other documentation that contains the basic details of an individual to steal an identity and make use of that person’s assets or their potential. 
I think for the confidence of the New Zealand public which my colleague Clare Curran has mentioned earlier— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I apologise to my colleague but I think this bill was in the name of Nathan Guy. 
Hon Members 
: No. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Well the copy that is on the Table of the House is in his name. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: No it is in the name of Chris Tremain. That is on your Order Paper. 
KRIS FAAFOI 
: Trying to pick up where I left it is inherent for the confidence of the people of New Zealand around documents like passports like birth certificates like death certificates and like marriage certificates that we do have a credible database around them and confidence in that information. I guess this bill which we have just learnt is in the name of the Hon Chris Tremain is before this Committee because the validation of that information is very important. I guess this bill opens up for private organisations such as banks if someone were to come in—if say Trevor Mallard came in to open up a new bank account and used a passport as his identifying documentation then the bank could ask Mr Mallard whether it was OK to check with the Department of Internal Affairs as to the validity of his documentation. If he said yes and it all checked out then I am sure the bank would quite obligingly help Mr Mallard open up a bank account. But if it did and it found that there was some irregularities then it could pick up an instance potentially of identity fraud where someone was trying to steal the identity of Trevor Mallard—as strange as that may seem. But it has been pointed out by Mr Auchinvole I think also that the individual has to consent for the validation of this information and I guess you would not rate your chances if your bank said “Well can we check this information.” and the individual said no. I think the bank would pretty much turn round and say “Well you can try somebody else son.” 
In terms of passports I think the confidence in those documents is very important and if people do turn up to—as an example—a bank with a passport we need to make sure that they are 100 percent secure and that we have confidence around that document. We have had in my memory in the last maybe 6 or 7 years a couple of instances where a few foreign nationals—I should say—actually got hold of New Zealand passports in a scurrilous manner. So in order to try to combat identity theft and fraud this bill seeks to allow agencies and private organisations such as banks to be able to verify the particulars that are offered up by individuals. 
Just going back to Part 1 and clause 4 which is the purpose clause—if you will just allow me to read that—it states: “The purpose of this Act is to facilitate the use of an electronic service that allows agencies to confirm identity information about individuals so as to—(a) contribute to the prevention of crime …”—we have talked about that—“and (b) ensure that agencies can use and if necessary record confirmed identity information.” I think that maybe we should potentially look at making an amendment here to clause 4(b) and make it read “ensure that agencies can use and if necessary securely record confirmed identity information.” because we have seen in recent months some concern amongst the public about the security of information that a number of Government agencies have. Again to list the number of the instances we have got the Work and Income kiosks where one individual citizen journalist Keith Ng was able to access some very delicate information—7000 files of the likes of medical records— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: He could have used it for identity. 
KRIS FAAFOI 
: —yes he could have it for identity—information around the fostering of children and invoices for contractors. Some pretty serious information was available to a private citizen publicly in the reception of a Work and Income office. We have also heard of the email that went to Bronwyn Pullar which contained information—[ 
Interruption 
] I am sorry. I will carry on. That information pertained to 6478 individuals and that is a lot of individuals to be contained in one email and was a serious breach of privacy. We have also heard recently in the last week around some irregularities with the privacy information around Novopay. Again this is a secondary issue for Novopay. The primary issue was the fact that people were not getting paid and then the secondary issue comes through with the fact that some staff members’ information was being given to schools where they were not working. Obviously that is a serious concern and hopefully we can get some information around that. Then Dr David Clark has pointed out on a number of occasions that the private information of around 6300 individuals was incorrectly released by the Inland Revenue Department. So I did just want to point back to clause 4 to say that maybe we should have a look at changing clause 4(b) to “ensure that agencies can use and if necessary securely record confirmed identity information.” 
But we do support this bill. We support the effort to try to combat identity fraud. As I say 2000 people a day in New Zealand are the victims of some kind of scam or identity theft and in this day and age the digital age where information is much more freely available the prospect of identity theft is much much higher. It has happened in the past. We have had one recent example in the last 2 or 3 years where someone who sat not too far away from us took the identity of a dead baby— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Is it David Garrett? 
KRIS FAAFOI 
: David Garrett. So that goes to show that although identity theft is not a new crime it is much more prevalent now because of the ease with which the information is transferred via the internet so that identity theft is much more of an issue. 
I do just want to point again to Mr Chris Auchinvole our own victim of identity theft as someone who had his credit card stolen. Was it recently Mr Auchinvole? 
Chris Auchinvole 
: No. 
KRIS FAAFOI 
: It was some time ago so I am sure things may have got worse. We have within this Chamber a prime example of what can happen if people get hold of your private information and things go haywire. 
We do support this bill. We believe that it does take some good measures but again we do have some concerns around the security of information. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 I want to start off by thanking Ruth Dyson for the work that she did chairing the Government Administration Committee and by saying again that it was a committee that worked well as a group. Gareth Hughes made I think some significant contributions on the Identity Information Confirmation Bill and I look forward to his contribution in the Committee. Both Mr Auchinvole and Mr Bakshi were also I think part of a team that treated this on a pretty much non-partisan basis. But unlike the bill that we were discussing earlier in the day and without going back on to the bill the Minister who was in charge of this bill when it was introduced just did not do his work properly. 
Nathan Guy who was the Minister in charge of the bill gave us a bill where on every substantive clause from clause 5 through to clause 16 we had to amend the bill and in fact we had to add some extra clauses in in order to get it into the sort of shape that is acceptable. I know that the Minister is a relatively new Minister but to introduce legislation to the House that is so badly inept that the whole substance of it—every clause that had any substantive effect—had to be amended is in fact something that is of major concern. 
So you can start at clause 5 “Interpretation”—not that it is that substantive. To be fair clause 6 which is within this part and which states: “This Act binds the Crown.” managed to make it through unamended and I congratulate Nathan Guy on getting that particular clause right. It is just a pity that he did not work as hard on the following clauses to make sure that they were accurate. Maybe he was just putting a challenge there for the select committee. Maybe what the Minister was doing was playing some sort of game with Mr Bakshi and Mr Auchinvole to see whether they could find all the mistakes that he had made in the bill that was drafted and that he had introduced to the House. But I want to say to him that it is a bit of a waste of the time of the Parliament to introduce a bill that is so badly drafted and in such a bad form as he did. 
The purpose of the bill is to provide a consent-based service to allow both private and public sector agencies to check identity information. It extends the use of the data validation service to public and private sector agencies but it is very much on a need-to-know basis. There are also the intermediaries which we will get on to. I think they are just referred to in this part but in the next part the intermediaries are a much more important part of the bill—the major change in the bill is the intermediaries. They are in the interpretation clause and we had to put them in there but their substantive role is outlined much more later on in the bill. 
The bill allows checking whether the identity information provided by a customer is consistent with that held by the Department of Internal Affairs through the citizenship registers the passport database and the various registers of the Births Deaths and Marriages registry office. For the purpose of this bill there is a key official and that is the Registrar-General of Births Deaths and Marriages. That is a person on whom there is quite a lot of focus and I think is the person—yes we have identified that person in the definition of “Registrar-General” in clause 5 of the legislation. 
We are supporting the bill as is obvious because it does give Government agencies and the private sector an ability to use identity information in the fight against fraud. I think all of us know that there is a lot of identity fraud around. I do not think there would be a member of this House who is not invited 10 or 20 times a day—it might have something to do with the quality of the spam filters that we have got—to supply information that would be used for fraudulent purposes. 
The Privacy Commissioner was satisfied that the legal arrangements and controls in this bill are adequate but what we did do was a beefing-up of the responsibilities of the registrar-general and the intermediaries to work with the Privacy Commissioner on each of the contractual arrangements. We are concerned as with the previous legislation the Electronic Identity Verification Bill about the security of private information. Frankly I do trust the registrar-general and his team more than I do Novopay—or Paula Bennett for that matter—with private information but I think the lessons that we have had recently indicate that we should be eternally vigilant against people who break into systems and against people who have systems that leave doors open for people to go into. That is why it is important to have a good person in that position of registrar-general as part of the team and for the Privacy Commissioner whose role is indicated in clause 5 to be actively involved in the area. 
My colleague Kris Faafoi referred to the case of David Garrett. It was one that was an old case it was a suppressed case and he was someone who used the methodology that was outlined in  
The Day of the Jackal 
 as a method of developing an identity. What we are told is that that sort of approach was quite common in the older days before there was a quality of electronic records and the ability to go back and trace. And what— 
Louise Upston 
: Back in your days Trevor. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Well back in my day although— 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: Better days. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I think Ruth Dyson might—no probably not all other members of the House will remember the case of Malcolm Douglas. Malcolm Douglas was a short-term MP in this House who was replaced in the Hunua electorate by— 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: The Hon Winston Peters. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: —the Rt Hon Winston Peters who at the time was not even the Hon Winston Peters. But Mr Douglas was replaced when Winston Peters was first an MP. The electoral petition from the time was based on Mr Douglas voting gravestones. Effectively the register of voters in the Hunua electorate was boosted by a number of people who had died. Some of them were put on the roll and others had died and had never come off the roll but by miracles these people were voting. As a result of that Mr Douglas who shared the approach to life of that family was in the end no longer a member of Parliament. The point that I am making or trying to make is that I hope that over time we can work through these systems and make sure that as well as having a good identity arrangement for checking it is extended to the electoral roll and in fact to the quality of the information on the electoral roll—the fact that people go on to the roll and hopefully stay on the roll even if their addresses change. It could work there. 
These cases are modern as well. There is a case that I will not go into in any depth because it is one where the woman is still waiting for sentencing but she is a woman who has been found guilty of more than 20 charges relating to opening fake TradeMe accounts gathering people’s Inland Revenue Department information trying to access their bank accounts and using other people’s credit cards. This is the sort of thing where we hope this legislation will make a difference. It will mean that that sort of fraud is harder to do in this particular case. Of course the systems eventually work but the fact that she had more than 20 charges—and I understand that they were representative charges which means that there were quite a lot more—is an indication that our current systems are not working as well as they should. 
The last case that I want to mention of this sort is the case of Te Rito Henry Miki. He was a sex offender who was employed in multiple schools as a result of changing his identity changing his name—apparently legally by deed poll—but not having continuity of record which was very important in stopping this sort of offending. 
I think it is important that we focus on who uses this register. I for one hope that the Teachers Council is an organisation that uses it and properly establishes information that tracks individuals especially if they use changes in name in an attempt to avoid something that is bad in their past or in some cases to organise charges to be made in a different name from the one that they are normally known by. That I think is something that is quite dangerous and again I think this legislation could help. 
The other criticism that I make is that although this bill is going through unanimously now I think it is one that has taken some time. At the beginning of this legislation the urgency of it was impressed on us and that was quite some time ago. The select committee worked expeditiously on it—very thoroughly as we can see from the number of changes that had to be made to the legislation—but then it just hung around on the Order Paper for an extraordinarily long time for a bill that is getting unanimous support from the House. I want to say in conclusion that I hope with the other recent failures that had been identified in the management of the security of private information that if there needs to be a legislative response to them it does not take the Government nearly as long as it did in this particular case. Thank you. 
Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram) 
: 
 I would like to take a call on this bill the Identity Information Confirmation Bill as a number of colleagues have because it is an incredibly important bill that we are considering here tonight. It is one that does seek to get the right balance between the public’s right to know certain information about people and the right to privacy. As Trevor Mallard has just spelt out in an excellent speech— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Eloquent. 
Dr MEGAN WOODS 
: —it was a very eloquent and excellent speech—this is a piece of legislation that has been worked on very hard at the Government Administration Committee consideration largely in a cross-party way to make sure that we have the best piece of legislation. But it has taken a long time to get to this Committee. I think the time we are considering this is very timely as it was with the previous legislation the Electronic Identity Verification Bill which we were just debating in this Chamber. 
The issue of identity fraud and the issue of how it is that the Government or the State deals with people’s identity information are issues that are of prime concern to people. We have had people not surprisingly referring to the instances where this House itself has become implicated in issues of identity fraud—talking about David Garrett and his kind of  
Day of the Jackal 
 textbook case of identity fraud. I think one of the things that this legislation is seeking to grapple with is not only the kinds of identity fraud that have always been able to happen but how it is that this changes in the technological context in which we live. So added to  
The 
Day of the Jackal 
 if we are going to look for movie inspiration I guess there is also  
The Net 
 a movie—and Clare Curran touched on some of these issues—about the way in which we are extra vulnerable around our information and our identity security in this technological age in the time of the internet. The purpose of this bill is to provide a consent-based service to allow both private and public sector agencies to check that information. The Identity Information Confirmation Bill extends the use of the data validation service to public and private sector agencies on a strictly need-to-know basis. I think it is incredibly important that this is on a need-to-know basis because we do have to have these provisions there. 
We all know that this is something that people are incredibly anxious about. We have people coming into our electorate offices and constituents talking to us regularly about their anxieties around the security of their data—who can access it how it is going to be used and if they speak out whether their information will be released by the Government as a way to silence them. What we saw is that an Australian security products company called Fellowes recently did a survey as it does—it is into its sixth year now on these surveys—around how people feel around this issue and it has found that 40 percent of New Zealanders are concerned about the threat of identity fraud. So this is certainly something that must be addressed. 
A number of members have shared personal stories where they have been a victim of identity fraud or things that have happened in this House throughout time in terms of identity fraud but I would just like to add a personal note there. As someone who has spent more time than is probably natural or healthy even in archives looking through the records of births deaths and marriages as a historian I can speak about the amount of information that you can glean and piece together about a person and their life from that information. It is a tool of historians all over the world where such information is held. When you are a young postgrad historian learning the historical method one of the first tools that you first learn to use is how it is that you piece together inordinate amounts of information from the sources about an individual. So I can speak from personal experience about the need to put these protections around this information and to make sure that there is a need-to-use and a need-to-know basis before people can just go in and access this information that is incredibly telling. Just as a footnote there you will never get an historian talking about the use of Births Deaths and Marriages records without talking about the $26 fee that it costs to access this information and what it might do to the quality of historical scholarship in this country if there is not an exemption for research purposes. 
Labour is supporting this bill because it is an important piece of the arsenal against identity fraud. We have seen over the last few months and actually from this Government which has a record of being incredibly sloppy with New Zealanders’ information the litany of where people’s personal information has been leaked or it has simply dribbled out of a Government agency or where a citizen journalist has been able to walk up to a kiosk put in a USB stick and download huge amounts of information about individuals that they should never have or whether it be the bank account details and personal information of hundreds of the nation’s teachers being leaked through yet another one of the glitches with the Novopay system—or as Ruth Dyson likes to call it the “No pay” system—of the Ministry of Education. We are seeing it with ACC we are seeing the obvious problems with Work and Income around security of data and of course we have also seen that with the Inland Revenue Department. My colleague David Clark has spoken at length about some of the problems in terms of the department and what it has done around the breach in respect of the personal information of 6300 people where we have had the wrong information being sent. In the most serious case with the Inland Revenue Department 638 people had details like their addresses and tax numbers released making them incredibly vulnerable to identity fraud. So although security companies such as Fellowes and the police will issue all kinds of advice to people about what they should do with their mail what they should do with documents that contain their personal address and a lot of personal information—like shredding it and getting rid of it—this is all well and good but if you cannot trust the information that the Government is holding about you then the whole issue of your identity security continues to be a risk. 
Labour will support this bill. It was pleased to have a positive input into this legislation and to be able to contribute to a lot of the changes that needed to be made to whip this legislation into shape as Trevor Mallard has described it. We are pleased to be part of actually making sure that the 40 percent of New Zealanders who do feel anxiety about the security of their personal details might be able to take some comfort that this will not be something that will cause them this level of anxiety and they will have confidence that the Government does have their personal information and its security at its heart because it needs to. Thank you. 
Part 1 agreed to. 
Part 2 Provisions relating to confirmation service and miscellaneous matters 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills) 
: 
 Thank you for the opportunity to speak on Part 2 of the Identity Information Confirmation Bill. As you correctly pointed out it starts at clause 7 and goes through to clause 20. I just want to begin by expressing a little bit of disappointment in the response that the Minister in the chair the Minister of Immigration gave to my colleague Trevor Mallard when he described the significant amount of change that was necessary to make this bill suitable for bringing back to the House. I was going to take a call on Part 1 but we suddenly seemed to have been voting so I will just briefly refer to the fact that a critical part of Part 1 needed amendment and that was the definition of “agency”. A big part of this bill is about ensuring that agencies are able to confirm identity but the very definition of “agency” needed to be changed by the Government Administration Committee because the bill that the Minister introduced did not include “intermediary” and that was an obvious problem that the select committee alerted the officials to. The officials quite properly drew up very impressive revised definitions of both “agency” and then a new definition of “intermediary” which again is described in Part 1. So two critical parts of making this bill work right—the definition of “agency” you know a sort of 101 of how this bill is going to work—needed to be corrected before the bill could come back to the House. 
In Part 2 the part we are up to now of course we now have to look at the insertions consistently throughout of “intermediary” which was omitted in the Minister’s first attempt at the bill but then we have other quite substantial amendments as well throughout this part including the exceptions which are outlined on page 8. So again there were substantial deletions and rewriting by the committee. Then we get to clause 11 where the entire clause which is a page and a half long is deleted and replaced with appropriate wording that actually goes for—if I could just count—one two three nearly four full pages of revised text. We are talking about a bill that is only 18 pages long and goes to clause 20 and then on to the schedule. This is not a big bill yet five pages in this bill are total rewrites. That is over a quarter of the bill was rewritten. When my colleague Trevor Mallard referred to this pretty flawed not great attempt at a bill that the Minister in the chair the Hon Nathan Guy had introduced the Minister pooh-poohed it. He brushed him off. He dismissed his concerns basically calling himself a pretty good Minister and saying that he had done a jolly fine job. Well the evidence is before the Committee as we speak. I am very pleased that the Government Administration Committee and the officials did such a lot of work to make not a great bill but one where the intention was clearly supported by Labour into something that was fit to be returned to the House. 
Obviously clause 13 is another area that has had a complete rewrite. That is in relation to requirements of the Privacy Commissioner. If you are talking about people having confidence in a system where an agency is able to use that service to confirm identity information that has been provided to it then having a clear definition of “agency” is pretty fundamental. There cannot be anything more fundamental than that. Then if you are talking about relationships and responsibilities I would have thought—and I think that most members of the Committee would think—that the requirements of consultation with the Privacy Commissioner would be another fundamental. This is the second part of the bill that has had to be substantially rewritten. 
Why do we think these issues are important? Well I will tell the Committee why from my perspective we think they are important. It is because so many things have been going wrong with our departmental systems. 
Mr Chairman—I thought you were going to push the buzzer there and I was just anticipating. [ 
Bell rung 
] Mr Chairman. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: The Hon Ruth Dyson. 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: That was a taunting little act Mr Chairman—done in the best humour I know and actually on the grounds of accuracy I am sure. 
Some are systems that are in-house like the shambles that we have seen at the kiosks at Work and Income where a regular punter went in did not hack into the system just used it as it was intended and the next minute was provided with copious amounts of information that nobody wanted him to have. Work and Income had been alerted to this security concern and for some reason did not seem to think that it was appropriate to tell its Minister the Minister for Social Development. Maybe its Minister would not have been interested in such a potential security breach but in my view that is the sort of activity that the Committee should be extremely concerned about not just because it was not hacking—it was just using the system as intended—but because it exposed some of the most vulnerable members of our community to potential abuse. 
There was a breach of their privacy. Fortunately the person who breached the security—quite legitimately as I understand it—did not use that information for any purpose that could have done any harm. Thank goodness for that. What if it had been someone who had malicious intent and knew how to operate the kiosk? The kiosk was set up so that Work and Income clients—people who are receiving a benefit or people who are going there for information and support—can look up things like information about jobs. It was never intended to pass over information about children in foster care their medication their personal addresses where they are living or other information that potentially is very damaging. 
We have also had some discussion about the total shambles that Hekia Parata has—in a pretty intelligent move actually—pushed on entirely to her Associate Minister of Education the Hon Craig Foss. I guess the temptation to pass on this sort of shambles to your associate is pretty strong especially when you are in such a lot of difficulty. In my home town of Christchurch the Minister came into town and said she was going to close and merge a lot of our schools and now people are wondering what on earth that is all about because there is no logic to it and there is no intention to have better educational outcomes. It is all a bit of a frustration and stress inducer actually. 
But what the Minister Hekia Parata has pushed on to her Associate Minister is responsibility for Novopay. First of all the problems with Novopay were pretty straightforward—immensely frustrating for teachers. Some of them just did not get paid. Then we found out that some of them had got paid even though they had left teaching some time ago. Well pleasant though it might be to get a big dollop of money in your bank account when you are not working for the person who has paid you that money you have also got to pay it back. You feel pretty uncomfortable that you have taken something that does not belong to you. It is an additional hassle and stress for people who frankly do not need it. 
But now we have found out that it is not just teachers not getting paid or people who are no longer teachers getting paid but that some schools are getting access to information—private details—about teachers who are not at their school. I noticed the Associate Minister’s comments about that. He said that every issue was being taken seriously. Well that is jolly fine but actually what we would like is the system fixed so that we do not have this ongoing problem for teachers who are now going through their exam period thinking about the Christmas break and not knowing at all what their financial situation is going to be because of this totally incompetent pay system. Having the Associate Minister say “Oh we’re taking all these issues seriously.” does not actually cut the mustard frankly. 
It is not good enough. It is like the quality of this bill when it was first introduced. The Marshall Laing Primary School associate principal said that it would have been easy under the current Novopay system to divert money from a teacher’s bank account through the breach in the system. How do teachers around the country feel about that? I do not think they would be very satisfied with it at all. This is just the latest in a series of very important and serious breaches where people’s individual privacy has been threatened and where people have been sent the wrong information by Government departments. I do not think frankly that the Government is getting on top of this at all. 
JAN LOGIE (Green) 
: 
 I rise to speak to Part 2 of the Identity Information Confirmation Bill and firstly to say that the Green Party would really like to be able to support this bill. If—hope against hope—we get support for our Supplementary Order Paper 148 then we will happily support this bill. 
We do recognise that identity fraud is a significant issue causes much stress and hardship within our society and is something that is deserving of proactive legislation to redress. However I guess for us it is a matter of balancing harms and we have a concern that although this bill as it is currently framed talks about fraud—a lot—it also opens up a system for employers to provide pressure on people to have to provide information that they are currently protected from having to provide. 
The Human Rights Act 1993 protects job applicants from discrimination on certain grounds. Employers should in the process of employing somebody ask only questions that relate to the requirements of the job and how qualified the candidate is for that job. We have recognised that there are very common grounds that people are discriminated on. It may be their date of birth nationality sex gender identity pregnancy marital status religious belief colour race disability age political opinions etc. 
We have the Human Rights Act to protect people against that discrimination because we know that it exists. My real concern is that this bill is going to open people up to having to disclose information that will trigger that discrimination whereas at the moment they are protected from having to give it. As an example when I apply for jobs I never put my date of birth on my CV. I know that age is a basis of discrimination and that for people over the age of 40 it is much harder to get a job. I never provide that information to give that in. And I know that in this country people have been advised to change their name to Anglicise their name to be able to get interviews. My concern is that this bill will open up that process and will give employers that information without having to ask for it directly and they will therefore not be open to a challenge for a breach of the Human Rights Act. 
I will give some examples of that to prove my case around in particular age discrimination and the discrimination on the basis of ethnicity. The Human Rights Commission has done a report  
A fair go for all? 
 looking at some of the racism in employment practices. Within that they gave an example of a 22-year-old job seeker who had moved to New Zealand from Syria. He was told that he should change his name to something more Kiwi to be able to get an interview. Another example was an Auckland-based civil engineer applying for a graduate position within an architectural business in my home town of Invercargill. The hiring manager asked for more details around who he was trying to determine his ethnicity—asking for a photograph his country of origin and how long he had lived in New Zealand. When the applicant asked why he was asking for that information he was told that well unfortunately any southern New Zealand client would possibly think twice about dealing with anyone with a Middle Eastern name. 
With this bill the employer is not even going to have to say that. They are going to ask for that information because it is about verifying their identity whereas in this situation the person said “Why are you asking for this information?” and then was told and got a clear indication of discrimination. That is not going to happen under this legislation potentially which is a very real concern. 
Another basis of discrimination in this country is around age and research that was done in 2006 through the Auckland University— 
Hon NATHAN GUY (Minister of Immigration) 
: 
 I wish to take a call on Part 2 of the Identity Information Confirmation Bill. It is interesting listening to the debate in the Committee tonight. I would like to make a few comments. First of all I think it is important to realise that Part 2 is a very important part. I acknowledge the contribution that the chair of the Government Administration Committee the Hon Ruth Dyson made before. I acknowledge that the select committee did a lot of work on this bill and I thank it on behalf of the Minister of Internal Affairs for that. Importantly Part 2— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Who introduced the bill? 
Hon NATHAN GUY 
: I did introduce the bill. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Very poorly drafted. Not the member’s best work. 
Hon NATHAN GUY 
: I acknowledge Mr Mallard the good work of the select committee and the bill that we now have in front of us. 
Importantly Part 2 looks at the provisions relating to the confirmation service and miscellaneous matters—and I will come to Jan Logie’s Supplementary Order Paper 148 in a moment. It also talks about how to use the confirmation service in clause 9. It talks about the parties to the confirmation agreement in clause 10; that is an important part. It also talks about in clause 11 the general requirements for the form and content of the confirmation agreement and it follows right through to the terms and conditions of that agreement and importantly under clauses 13 and 14 the safeguards that the Privacy Commissioner has over this particular piece of legislation. 
If I refer now to the member’s Supplementary Order Paper—Jan Logie’s one which is Supplementary Order Paper 148—I think it is first of all worthwhile mentioning that there are legitimate reasons why employers may need to confirm the identity information of a potential employee. There are no current provisions as I understand it in the Citizenship Act 1977 or the Births Deaths Marriages and Relationships Registration Act 1995 for the employer to verify the citizenship status of potential employees. This bill allows employers to verify that a potential employee is a New Zealand citizen. That is an important part of this bill and to read Supplementary Order Paper 148 from Jan Logie and to hear her comments that this part opens up a system to provide pressure on the employee I do not agree. I also do not agree with her comments that it is going to trigger discrimination because ultimately the individual has to consent. If I can find that part to try to reassure the member it is covered under clause 8(1)(a): “the individual has consented (in written or electronic form) to the check before it is carried out ...”— 
Denis O’Rourke 
: What about pressure to consent? 
Hon NATHAN GUY 
: —and it goes on to I believe clarify that the individual will not be pressured because they have to consent to it. 
So the Government does not support the Greens’ Supplementary Order Paper 148 because that is an important part that is included in the bill to allow the employer to clarify the status of the employee. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 It is not very often that I agree with the Hon Nathan Guy but I think in respect of the amendment in the name of Jan Logie I do take that position. I think it is fair to say that the operative part of this Identity Information Confirmation Bill was after two types of problems. One was people who take people’s identity for the purpose of getting money and the other was the sort of person who takes someone’s identity often for even more nefarious purposes than that. I referred earlier to the case of Te Rito Henry Miki who has appeared before the courts as a result of shifting from school to school and changing his identity as he went. I as a former Minister of Education had a lot to do with the Teachers Council as it was set up and saw reports on absolutely awful cases of abuse—absolutely awful cases of abuse. What made it worse in some cases was that the individual when they were close to being caught used what are legal methods of deed poll and other arrangements to change their name to move on in identity and then they repeated their offences. That is something that this particular character did and my hope is that having a proper identity verification service will stop an individual doing that because it will supply a continuity of record of an individual’s name. 
I accept that that will result in some prejudice against some individuals getting jobs because of their previous records but my view is that when it comes to areas such as education and health there is the trust that we put in people and the risks that we face with people who are not who they say they are—and we have had recent cases of medical practitioners who have pretended to be other people and students who have pretended to be other people and have had access to things that they should not have access to. This will not be the total solution but a major part of the purpose is to have the continuity of identification of the individuals. 
I understand what the member is saying. She is concerned that by giving an age it means that it will result in prejudice against someone because of their age. Well if that is the case it is already and quite separately an offence—you are not allowed to do that—but at the moment date of birth along with name is actually a pretty good unique identifier. It is a way of checking that people are who they say they are and having that continuity. 
 Although I have got sympathy for the views of the member and I share her concerns at misuse especially of age information if it results in prejudice against the old or the young because it can happen both ways—especially in these days when you have you know 2000 people applying for five jobs and it can be used as a screening method like that—and that is a danger. But I also say that for a lot of jobs it is important to identify the individual and to verify them. Therefore we will not be supporting that amendment. 
As we indicated before this part of the bill has had substantial amendment. The introduction of the intermediaries is something that was particularly important and it has reshaped the bill as we worked through but it is a piece of legislation with all of that work that we now support. In fact we support it so much that we have agreed that the third reading be part of the extended sittings that we are looking forward to in December to ensure that we can get the bill through and get it operative as soon as possible in the new year. 
DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First) 
: 
 New Zealand First supports the Identity Information Confirmation Bill to help attack identity fraud and ensure that only identity confirmation information is supplied and only to approved agencies. Identity information means information about a person’s full name gender date of birth place of birth and other recorded information—for example a passport photograph—and the status of the recorded information. The service can be used by an intermediary who is a party to a confirmation agreement with the responsible officials. 
The purpose of Part 2 is “to allow an agency or intermediary to check whether an individual’s identity information is consistent with any recorded information.” That in itself limits the scope of the confirmation service but I am glad to see that there are many other safeguards. In clause 8 there is a list of conditions for using the confirmation service which most particularly of course require the individual to consent whether in writing or electronically and that is an important basis of the protections provided to the individual under this bill. It requires the agency or intermediary applying to give an assurance that the consent has been obtained and of course that it has also entered into the required confirmation agreement. There is also the ability for an individual to consent on a one-off basis or an ongoing basis and to withdraw that consent as well. We think those are all very important safeguards in the bill for the individual. 
We also approve of course of clause 9(4) which states: “The confirmation service must not at any stage supply to the agency or intermediary any recorded information about the individual who is the subject of the search.” So it really is only confirmation information that is provided and it is important that it be limited in that way. Clause 9 of course provides a bit of an exemption in respect of obviously people who have died or where there has been a name change or where the status of recorded information has changed as well and those are necessary exemptions. 
Clause 10 gives a long list of requirements in respect of the responsible officials requiring a need to be demonstrated by an intermediary before they can enter into an agreement and also they must have policies and practices in respect of the security of information and relating to the privacy of individuals. We think those are particularly appropriate and important ways of limiting the scope of the bill to make sure that it is focused only on what it is intended to achieve. 
Clauses 11 11A and 11B contain very comprehensive provisions concerning what must be in a confirmation agreement and in addition how those agreements are to be used. I note the addition of new clause 11A concerning how the agency must obtain an individual’s consent and how he or she may withdraw that consent. I also acknowledge the very important role of the Privacy Commissioner. 
New Zealand First believes that the protection of the individual forms an important part of this bill while at the same time it provides an efficient and valuable service for agencies and intermediaries to obtain confirmation information. So for those reasons New Zealand First is happy to support the bill. 
I did finally want to comment on Jan Logie’s Supplementary Order Paper 148 to exclude the use of the service for employment processes. That should be supported as well. Like Jan Logie I agree that it is very important that we should do all we can to stop age discrimination and similar forms of discrimination. We think it is a serious problem. We think that it is often underestimated in this House. I think that Trevor Mallard and some other speakers have underestimated it and I would really ask the question in relation to that of what harm it would do to pass that Supplementary Order Paper and have that provision. I think it is harmless and I think it would make a contribution. I do understand that— 
JAN LOGIE (Green) 
: 
 I would now like just to take this chance to address some of the responses to our Supplementary Order Paper 148 where the Minister in the chair justified this and said it could not be used in effect to hide discrimination because it was optional and people would have the ability to opt out of it. My concern is that discrimination happens primarily to marginalised groups. Marginalised groups are the least likely to be able to stand up and step out of what is seen as the standard pathway because of the fear of discrimination on the basis of doing just that. On that basis I really do not believe that the opt-out clause in this bill is going to protect those people. 
We have also heard from my colleague Trevor Mallard saying “Well it is an offence already. Discrimination is an offence already. This is not going to make a difference.” Well my point is that employers currently have to ask questions to find out that information and you can use those questions as evidence in taking a case of discrimination. This bill will mean those employers will not have to ask those questions and you will have no evidence that you have been discriminated against. 
I would just like to draw the Committee’s attention to how prevalent age discrimination is. The research from 2006 from the Auckland business group at the university showed that 25-year-old workers were six to 12 times more likely to be short-listed for a low-demand position than a 55-year-old-plus worker. That is six to 12 times. This is a really significant issue in our society and this bill has the potential to hide that discrimination. I do not think that is good enough. 
When Mr Mallard also said—taking an issue that is incredibly dear to my heart protecting victims of sexual abuse—“Well we have had this evidence of a school teacher going from school to school and changing identity.” I am not going to say that that is not an issue. I do not believe this legislation is the appropriate response to that issue. What this legislation does is take away a kind of simple way of carrying on abuse when nobody has taken any action. The appropriate response to sexual abuse being done by teachers in schools is to act on that abuse and to take that to the courts not to set up an alternative system that is going to undermine people’s human rights and rights to privacy. This bill does not protect fundamental human rights and I believe that the older people in New Zealand and people born outside of New Zealand deserve our care and our protection in the employment market. 
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. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 23 
Green Party 14; New Zealand First 8; Mana 1. 
Noes 98 
New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 34; Maori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
Part 2 agreed to. 
Schedule agreed to.  
Clauses 1 and 2 
Clause 1 agreed to. 
Clause 2 agreed to. 
Bill to be reported without amendment presently.