Reported back

The Justice and Electoral Committee has reported back [PDF] on the Privacy (Cross-border Information) Amendment Bill. The bill amends the Privacy Act to extend its protections to foreign nationals with information held in New Zealand (rather than just New Zealanders), and to prevent New Zealand being used as an intermediary to circumvent privacy laws overseas. The bill is weak, and needed to be strengthened to properly protect the privacy rights of New Zealanders; unfortunately the committee passed on that, and sent it back with only minor technical amendments. Its disappointing, but given that I didn't rouse myself to submit on it (and there were only two submitters), I have no-one to blame but myself.