Hughes Gareth: Electronic Identity Verification Bill Identity Information Confirmation Bill — Third Readings 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Hughes Gareth: Electronic Identity Verification Bill Identity Information Confirmation Bill — Third Readings 
[Sitting date: 11 December 2012. Volume:686;Page:7393. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
GARETH HUGHES (Green) 
: 
 Kia ora. Nga mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I rise to support the Electronic Identity Verification Bill but not the Identity Information Confirmation Bill which the Green Party will be opposing. We have requested that the questions be put separately so that our votes can be recorded subsequently. 
Both these two important bills deal with electronic information at its heart and how we manage it. It is a big important policy debate. I think it is only going to get more important as the years roll on. I want to point out and congratulate the parties. We have a collaborative process on the Government Administration Committee which I was involved in with the Electronic Identity Verification Bill. I have heard the support of Chris Auchinvole and Trevor Mallard and I would like to reciprocate and say that it was a very collaborative process—a very well-mannered select committee. This is select committees at their best putting the politics aside and working out what is best. 
But can I just touch on the deplorable comments of the member from National Maggie Barry. I did not hear the actual comments that Chris Hipkins alluded to. If I had I would have taken a point of order and urged her to withdraw and apologise. I understand Maggie Barry said that members like Gareth Hughes were stealing people’s identities. This is an outrage from the member that does no service to that member or that party or the good work that all the parties have done on this legislation. I think it belittles Parliament’s poison ivy Maggie Barry. If we are going to talk about identity let us talk about common herbicide. Maybe we should give that member the identity of the “Roundup member”. 
Back to the issues at hand I just want to touch on the issues which are that we hear about this stuff only when it goes wrong. We hear it from the likes of Work and Income Novopay and ACC leading the Privacy Commissioner to call this year “the year of the privacy breach”. It is critical we get this stuff right and it is critical as I am sure the member Clare Curran would agree that MPs get their heads around this stuff and understand it because it is so critical and will be increasingly important as the years go on. I would like to acknowledge the work of Nikki Kaye in particular from the National Party and Clare Curran from the Labour Party. Together we have worked on a cross-party IT group for the last two Parliaments and I think we have done some good work. It is good that parties can work across the floor on that. Just to continue the good vibes I would like to thank the officials at the select committee all the submitters and the Privacy Commissioner in particular and InternetNZ for its very well-reasoned submissions. 
This bill and the Electronic Identity Verification Service—or igovt as it is more popularly known—give individuals using the internet the option of using a secure channel to verify identities and to access services from both Government and approved non-government agencies. It is desirable. It is beneficial. Many New Zealanders want to engage and will find it more convenient to engage with the Government through this channel. I note that the regulatory impact statement says that it has an economic benefit of $300 million which is obviously very desirable. I would like to point out though that it is important that we do not entirely replace face-to-face interaction with Government departments. I am sure the housing Minister Phil Heatley could tell us about the problems when you get rid of face-to-face agents and you go to only a call centre or an online-based system. So it is obviously not the answer and it is obviously not the way all Kiwis want to engage. There is a real digital divide in New Zealand. We know from the latest statistics that around 22 percent of New Zealanders still do not have broadband access. 
Hon Phil Heatley 
: I’m a Minister in learning. 
GARETH HUGHES 
: It is good to see the National Government still learning as Phil Heatley says. So we have seen where it goes bad. You can just see with the kiosks at Work and Income. Sometimes this relentless drive for efficiency can have real costs for New Zealanders and not necessarily a good service. Sometimes it can just turn into a farce. 
I want to quickly touch on how the Electronic Identity Verification Bill was improved at the Government Administration Committee. I think there were three big fundamental changes. The first was changes to clauses 56 which increased the fines. Like we saw with the  
Rena 
 we had some pretty low traditional historical fines that were not really in keeping with the modern world. We have increased these to $1 million for corporate agents which I think is more realistic and more up with the times. Secondly we have changed the requirements so that information can now be accessed only via a search warrant to access someone’s usage history. Up until then the bill had previously been drafted so that any official in the Department of Internal Affairs if they were working with the concurrence or I guess the proxy of the chief executive could access all that information which is potentially all New Zealanders as I believe more and more New Zealanders will choose to engage through this unique verification portal the igovt portal. So it is good that we have got another check and balance which is the search warrant. 
Then we have got the changes to clause 65A which deals with the deletion of data. Obviously we will collect a huge amount of data for the Government under this system in terms of identity and all the information and photographs of an individual so having a deletion of data provision I think is very important. That was a clear message from the submitters to the select committee. What we have done is left it up to the Minister to decide through regulations but with an important clause attached that the Minister must consult with the Privacy Commissioner. I think given the year that we have had and given the increasing engagement with the Government online we will see an increasing role for the Privacy Commissioner and hopefully we will see increasing funding for that very important office. So ultimately this is a good bill with significant economic benefits. They are good benefits for New Zealand citizens. I think it is important however to note while we are talking about the verification of identity that anonymity online is also important. We should not lose that in a free and open internet. Obviously we need to do more to attack the digital divide or else this Parliament will just see more and more New Zealanders left behind not able to access the information or the assistance that we will see delivered through this service. 
On the second bill the Identity Information Confirmation Bill the Green Party is disappointed that we cannot support this bill. We tried to improve it so that we could support it. Unfortunately Jan Logie’s Supplementary Order Paper 148 was not supported. The key issue for us in terms of this bill facing the House is the need to address identity theft. We acknowledge that that is incredibly important. We think we do need greater legislative amendments to increase that. But what we were particularly concerned about was the potential that the system could be abused by employers particularly as part of the requirement to disclose information to verify identity. The fear was that an employer could require an employee to disclose quite a large amount of information. The employee might be reluctant to given maybe a history of discrimination. We heard numerous accounts from Jan Logie where this has happened or scenarios where it could happen. Normally people in the current world do not have to disclose information where they feel it could put them in a discriminatory situation and what we could see is this law overriding that. That was our great fear. We tried to amend that with that Supplementary Order Paper which unfortunately did not pass. That is why we will be voting against that bill tonight. When the question is put we will be voting for the Electronic Identity Verification Bill and against the Identity Information Confirmation Bill. Thank you.