O'Rourke Denis: Electronic Identity Verification Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
O'Rourke Denis: Electronic Identity Verification Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 13 November 2012. Volume:685;Page:6541. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First) 
: 
 As I have already said New Zealand First supports the Electronic Identity Verification Bill overall. There are some aspects in Part 3 however that I do wish to comment upon. First of all relating to unauthorised hacking deleting and altering of information in respect of clause 56(3) New Zealand First does approve of the penalty increases there for individuals being up to $250000 or 10 years’ imprisonment and for organisations being up to $1 million. The point here is that these are significant penalties and they need to be significant because we need a very strong deterrent for these sorts of activities these days. One could list many and various instances when very severe cases of hacking and altering of information has occurred in many areas both in the public and private sectors. The point however is that significant penalties are very important so that is supported. 
However when I look at clause 58(1)(a) relating to unauthorised access I said in an earlier speech that I thought it would be wise to add an offence of attempting to access after the place where the word “access” is used in the clause and also to expand it to define what would constitute an attempt. I find it a little bit difficult to know whether access needs to be a successful access or a complete accessing of information or whether some sort of an attempt to do so would itself be a sufficient offence for the purposes of the bill. I would have liked to see some amendment of that particular clause to cover that kind of issue. Of course it is not too late to do that. Perhaps the Government could have a look at it. Similarly the same thing arises in clause 58(3) where again the words “attempts to use” are specified. Again we could add something about “attempts” in that section too. I think it is very important indeed that the bill should specifically cover attempts so that we know what is meant by access and we know what is meant by an attempted access. 
Moving on when I look at penalties I think the Government should also reconsider clause 58(4) concerning accessing of information and using information because I think that we need higher penalties than are specified there. I think they should go up in respect of an individual from 2 years’ imprisonment or a $50000 maximum fine to up to 5 years’ imprisonment or a $200000 fine. For corporations I think it would be appropriate for the penalty to be raised from $200000 which for many corporations is not a huge sum of money to at least $500000 for the illegal accessing and using of information. I think that we need to understand that the possibility of commercial gain from some of these illegal activities is quite large especially for corporations. We need strong penalties to deter that sort of behaviour. Organisations that hack information would be doing so for commercial gain and they cannot be imprisoned so we need to have very high financial penalties. That is what we in New Zealand First would like to see. There might also be other possible penalties such as deregistering a company but at the very least much higher financial penalties are warranted. 
In respect of the regulating powers New Zealand First agrees with new clause 65A concerning regulations to prescribe the length of time that electronic identity credentials photographs records of usage history status information and technical codes are retained after their cancellation revocation or expiry. We also approve in particular of the requirement for the regulations for these purposes to be subject first to consultation with the Privacy Commissioner. I think that is very appropriate indeed. New Zealand First also approves of allowing a different duration to be set in regulations for electronic identity credentials issued to children under 14 years of age because of course children’s appearances change dramatically as they age and generally they hold fewer identity documents which can limit the effectiveness of biometric checks on them. With those reservations and some of those suggestions which we think would improve the bill New Zealand First would be very happy to support all parts of it.