NZ: Privacy reality check

I spend a lot of my working day thinking about identity-related online services. Protection of privacy in these services is axiomatic. Not only does it make good sense to me, it’s also mandated as one of the policy principles by Cabinet.

The 2007 Privacy & Human Rights Report issued by Privacy International provides a reality check. Across the 47 countries surveyed, the Report says that, “The 2007 rankings indicate an overall worsening of privacy protection across the world, reflecting an increase in surveillance and a declining performance of privacy safeguards.”

New Zealand gets a red colour indicating “Systemic failure to uphold safeguards” as does Australia. Canada gets a yellow for “Some safeguards but weakened protections” while USA and UK get a black for being “Endemic surveillance societies.” Top of the heap is Greece but even it gets only a 3.1 rating out of 5.

The Report lists nine key aspects for New Zealand’s ranking. This seems to have prompted a leading blogger in The New Zealand Herald to call it ‘Systematic failure’ to protect our privacy who goes on to say “From biometric passports to greater sharing of information among Government departments to greater use of surveillance technology, we would certainly seem to be following the lead of countries in the black category. But privacy is a touchy issue for Kiwis and rightly so. Just listen to talkback radio whenever talk of a national ID card emerges in the media.”

According to the Report, of particular concern for NZ is:

- “Court of appeal has had some problematic decisions regarding privacy complaints” and

- “DNA database based on order from high court judge, violent crimes, and convicted burglars; though voluntary samples can be included and increasingly this is being pushed by the police, resulting in more than 80% of samples on database being given ‘voluntarily’.”

I think what’s missing from the Report is people’s perception of the state of privacy in the country being reviewed. Perceptions can be as (if not more) important than the reality.

On that front, in my opinion NZ is doing fine but, as the Report shows, things could be better.