Poor data privacy a problem throughout the public sector

Today it was revealed Health New Zealand is undergoing an urgent overhaul for its data sharing agreements on discovering they had no power to check if sensitive health data had been misused.

“The public service has an appallingly lax attitude towards data privacy” said Sam Warren, a spokesman for the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union.

“The overhaul follows findings from Sir Brian Roche’s inquiry into the Manurewa Marae, and until now, Health NZ had no idea about its system’s weaknesses.”

“It’s not at all dissimilar to the issues we found with Inland Revenue last year, when they were caught giving sensitive taxpayer information to overseas tech firms like Facebook.”

“Sir Brian Roche is doing excellent work reorienting the public service. It’s a big job with seemingly no end for improvement. We’d strongly encourage him to take a look into Inland Revenue next, an agency that remains steeped with poor data safety protocols and an attitude completely at odds with the protection of Kiwis’ privacy.”