Privacy Commissioner - Te Mana Matapono Matatapu

International

New Zealand’s privacy laws are just one part of a world-wide picture of privacy protection.

Privacy is protected as a human right at the highest international level. The United Nations has adopted provisions or instruments that protect privacy. For example:

• Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
• Article 17 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

Those UN instruments are set at a very general level. A number of international bodies have developed more detailed guidelines for information privacy protection. Examples from two organisations that New Zealand is a member of are:

The OECD Guidelines on Protection of Privacy and Transborder Flows of Personal Data (1980) and, more recently The APEC Privacy Framework (2005)

There are also several international meetings of privacy regulators, such as the annual International Conference of Data Protection Commissioners,  the International Working Group on Data Protection in Telecommunications (IWGDPT) and the Asia Pacific Privacy Authorities Forum(APPA). The Privacy Commissioner and her staff contribute to these meetings.