Curran Clare: General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Curran Clare: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 27 March 2013. Volume:688;Page:8996. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South) 
: 
 It is a basic fundamental principle of our democracy of our country that data and information about any individual that are collected by a Government whether it is a department a ministry or an agency should be kept confidential and that the Government agency can be trusted—can be trusted—to treat your information within a set of guidelines that your personal details will not be accidentally emailed to a complete stranger as we have seen with the latest breach at the Earthquake Commission and that your sensitive information will not be shared inappropriately or handed to the media to make a political point. How can the public of New Zealand trust a Government that allows systemic breaches across multiple departments and agencies to occur and when they occur the Prime Minister behaves as if it is all not a problem and he is indifferent and dismissive as we have seen this week? 
This is an extremely serious matter and it is a matter of public trust. It requires a serious response and an acknowledgment that these issues need to be addressed not just on a department by department or a case by case basis but right across the Government. It requires a systemic response and it will require the Prime Minister of this country and all of the Ministers on that side of the House to take off their blinkers get out of their horses and carts stop their jokes and get into the 21st century. The Prime Minister really had better smarten up because his pathetic responses are being met with derision—derision and disbelief—from an information and communications technology community that is aghast at the ignorance and indifference that he is showing. 
This is not just about an individual’s human error; this is 2013 and it should not be happening. There should be systems in place to prevent these things happening to prevent human error. In the last year as Phil Goff pointed out more than 120000 New Zealanders have had their privacy breached by this Government’s incompetence its head in the sand attitude or its blatant disregard for individuals’ privacy. Phil Goff read them out—seven different ministries and agencies. Hekia Parata and Paula Bennett were two Ministers caught out releasing private correspondence and private information. 
The private sector has warned repeatedly that New Zealand has a major problem with information security and a strategy released late last year by a group of IT security professionals said that “While technological innovation is high within the New Zealand market the national spend on educating training and developing skilled technical personnel is surprisingly low creating an imbalance and directly contributing to the fragility and vulnerability of our nations IT systems.” If that is not a significant warning I do not know what is. Yesterday the chief executive officer of the Institute of IT Professionals Paul Matthews said that the Earthquake Commission had failed Security 101 and that it was mickey mouse stuff that such sensitive information could be sent so easily to an outside person. It is not rocket science. SEEMail which David Shearer referenced yesterday in the House is just one secure electronic system. Why has it not been mandated across all Government agencies and ministries? As I understand it it is not mandatory; it is an opt-out system. The point is that what we need to know is that there is a basic system across all agencies and if there is sensitive material to be handled then it is critical. There are plenty of options out there. The private sector has plenty of options if the Government was willing to ask it. Simple checks—you send the email with an attachment and it bounces back checking that you really want to send it.  
Last year two-thirds of New Zealanders said that they did not trust Government departments to protect their information. I wonder what they would be saying now. We have to treat this seriously. I have got a member’s bill that will come before this House in the next few months. It is called the Electronic Data Safety Bill. It sets up a special commission of inquiry across Government agencies. It is a very serious matter. In the absence of a joined-up strategy for our data security I urge everyone to support it.