“It’s not all about you”: limiting the Privacy Act’s intrusions

“The words ‘about an individual’ direct attention to the need for the individual to be a subject matter of the information.”

In Harder v Proceedings Commissioner [2000] 3 NZLR 80 (CA) – while noting what constituted ‘personal information’, defined as “information about an identifiable individual” for the purposes of the Privacy Act 1993, was not at issue in the case and remained “open for determination when it directly arises” – the Court of Appeal warned “An unqualified approach to what constitutes ‘information about an identifiable individual’ will lead readily to breaches of one or more of the information privacy principles”. The “unqualified approach” adds significantly to the Act’s regulatory costs – both in compliance, and in remedies for interferences with privacy. No appellate judgment since has interpreted the meaning of the Act’s ‘personal information’. Continue reading ““It’s not all about you”: limiting the Privacy Act’s intrusions”

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W(h)ither privacy?

Social media takes its toll

A result remains awaited from the UKSC’s urgent hearing last Thursday of an appeal against the EWCA’s reversal the previous Monday (PJS v News Group Newspapers Ltd [2016] EWCA Civ 393) of the interim injunction it granted to PJS in January 2016 ([2016] EWCA Civ 100). At issue was NGN’s intention to publish an account of PJS’s extramarital sexual activities. Continue reading “W(h)ither privacy?”