Clark David: Privacy (Information Sharing) Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Clark David: Privacy (Information Sharing) Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 19 February 2013. Volume:687;Page:7943. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North) 
: 
 Thank you for this opportunity to speak to this bill the Privacy (Information Sharing) Bill. I think Dr Smith’s contribution was useful and typical of the wide-ranging conversation that we are having in respect of the issues and principles underlying this legislation and it was appropriate for the Committee stage. I want to dig a little deeper into the Government’s attitude towards privacy and context which was an issue that Dr Smith raised. I want to use the concrete example of the Inland Revenue Department privacy breaches from last year to explore that theme a little and I also want to be clear that I do not think that the Government’s response is adequate. I think this bill takes some steps in the right direction but they are meek. We need a more holistic approach a wider approach not one that is so piecemeal. The Inland Revenue Department privacy breaches last year involved 6300 people and these were the ones that were revealed in October. There were 32 separate breaches that affected that many people. There is something going wrong in the system when that happens. Regardless of whether it has been happening for a while it is a problem that needs to be addressed. What we do not see is a Government that is taking seriously that problem of addressing these privacy breaches. 
If we look at the breaches at ACC the breaches at Work and Income and the breaches at the Inland Revenue Department and we add them up we see that 16000 Kiwis have had their private details released to other people in just those examples. That is four out of every 1000 New Zealanders. If you extrapolate that across and you say that this can continue as it is you pretty quickly—well in 10 years—get to a case where 4 percent of New Zealanders have had their private details released and that starts to undermine the whole system. When we talk about the Inland Revenue Department we are talking about people’s most sensitive personal information—all of their financial records and all of their banking details can be in there. There are details about their history that nobody would want released. We need trust if we are to run Government effectively in this country. 
What is more of those 6300 people whose privacy was breached by the Inland Revenue Department last year we know that 5700 of those people were never contacted. Those people do not even know that their private information has been released. I think this is a tragedy. This is a shambles. This is a Government that is not facing up to this privacy issue properly. We have a computer system in the Inland Revenue Department that we know is 20 years old. We know that it predates Facebook by 10 years we know that it predates Google and we know that it pretty much predates the internet as we know it today. That system is still expected to handle all our most sensitive information. It is no wonder that things are going wrong. Mr Dunne has been the revenue Minister for 7 years and has failed to lay out a proper plan to address this problem. 
The Inland Revenue Department is struggling in many other respects. We know that there is roughly $7 billion of tax outstanding. There are a million tax returns unprocessed. We have got a department that is not performing and that is under pressure and we have got a Government that is mouthing platitudes about privacy but is actually not taking the concrete steps to address it. It is spending money we are told on consultants. Capgemini I think has pocketed about $20 million so far in consultants’ fees. But the Government has not yet laid out a cogent plan as to how it is going to update that computer system which is a critical part in taking these privacy issues seriously. We cannot wait 10 years. We cannot wait another 10 years for all the private details of New Zealand citizens to be released in order to address this problem. We need the Government to step up and show that it is determined to actually address this problem and to put its money where its mouth is. It is one thing for Bill English to say $700 million from the asset sales— 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: How much? 
Dr DAVID CLARK 
: $700 million he said will be going towards repairing the computer system. John Key estimated it would be a billion dollars and the Inland Revenue Department and Peter Dunne have used the $1.5 billion figure. They are all over the show—they are all over the show. Ministers have been looking at this for 2 years and they have not yet begun to outline a plan for New Zealanders as to how they are going to take their private details seriously. That is just not good enough. 
We have also got another issue in that the consultancy they are using Capgemini has an absolutely appalling reputation for tax avoidance internationally. The UK Government—we have seen in the last week—has said it will not employ the likes of Capgemini.