Unkovich TanyaTANYA UNKOVICH (NZ First): It's my honour to rise on behalf of New Zealand First and support this bill the Privacy Amendment Bill. This bill aims to enhance privacy protections in New Zealand by amending the Privacy Act. The primary objective is to improve transparency for individuals regarding the collection of their personal information. It seeks to empower them to exercise their privacy rights as well.Now currently there's no requirement for an agency whether public or private to notify an individual if they have received their information indirectly. So that is why this bill is essential to address this gap. Now my husband may dispute the comment I'm about to say now but I'm not really—Hon Scott Simpson: Careful Tanya. This could be dangerous.TANYA UNKOVICH: —yeah better be careful—a big shopper. I like to say that I've got a black belt in shopping and I know what I want and—Hon Scott Simpson: Are you frugal?TANYA UNKOVICH: Yes the accountant in me is very frugal but the Croat in me thinks that money grows on trees so that's what my father always taught us. I want to go into a shop and buy what I need and leave. I'm not one to dawdle online and buy online.Hon Member: Especially if they're shoes.TANYA UNKOVICH: No—well look apart from food. But recently I did do that and all of a sudden I'm noticing I am getting emails and text messages from this organisation and I'm going More fool you." And I find if I haven't been on the site then I'm getting an email or a text message recommending stuff to me. And what this has done is it has really opened my eyes to the power of data and the power of organisations when they have this data and that is why I really wanted to raise that topic. I consider myself to be pretty tech savvy but what if someone is not tech savvy? That is how they buy and get engaged and get scammed. So look I'm very quick to unsubscribe. I'm very quick to take action but many people are not. So that is why I feel that this is a very timely piece of legislation as more and more people are in fact shopping online and their information is going everywhere.There are some technical amendments in this bill. I won't go into those. They've already been mentioned. I will say that New Zealand First is a common-sense party of course so we feel that this is a very common-sense bill. We acknowledge and support the importance of privacy rights of New Zealanders especially in this digital age. There's so much uncertainty. So we're very much in support for that reason—protecting individuals' privacy but also having that balance of accommodating the legitimate use of the information. We support accountability we support security we support transparency.Hon Scott Simpson: All of those are common sense.TANYA UNKOVICH: All of those are common sense and of course international best practice.We do acknowledge the need for some exemptions. I often get emails and I go "How on earth did that person get that email address?" but it is publicly available. So there is the need to have exemptions when there is information that is already publicly available. Otherwise it would be a reporting nightmare for agencies so we do need to take that into account as well when drafting this bill.The world of social media and the internet as we all know has changed the world and we do need to change with it and protect each other.Hon Scott Simpson: Who owns the data?TANYA UNKOVICH: Who owns the data? Well this is a very good question. Who does own the data? Who does own our email addresses if they are publicly known?In summary New Zealand First will support this bill. It's a common-sense bill and it will bridge the gap that we have currently in our legislation. So we look forward to seeing it in this House. Oh sorry; did I just put you to sleep Mr Speaker?SPEAKER: No that wasn't a very smart thing to say I've got to say!TANYA UNKOVICH: I beg your pardon. Thank you Mr Speaker."