Source: New Zealand Privacy Commissioner – Blog
Welcome to our latest round-up of privacy news stories for the week.
Five things businesses should consider to prepare for the Privacy Act 2020
The Privacy Act 2020 has finally made its way through Parliament and will come into effect on 1 December. The act modernises our current privacy laws, last updated in 1993, back when the internet was still in its infancy. In that time, business has become digital and so too has our data. Here are five tips to help businesses prepare for the new Privacy Act.
Auckland teenager receives strangers’ Covid-19 test results
A North Shore man says he has been left “extremely frustrated” after his daughter was accidentally sent the Covid-19 test results of two women unknown to him. The text messages revealed the patients’ first names and the results of their tests. Read more here.
Contact tracing details used to pick up supermarket customer
A North Shore woman has been left unnerved after getting a text message from a stranger who claimed he got her number off a contact tracing sheet at a supermarket. The incident follows a case earlier in the year, when a woman’s contact tracing details were abused by a man to make unwanted advances. Read more here.
Police setting up $9m facial recognition system
Police have been quietly setting up a $9 million facial recognition system that can take a live feed from CCTV cameras and identify people from it. The system will be run by a non-police contractor – US firm Dataworks Plus – and collect 15,000 facial images a year. Read more here.
China awakens to digital privacy concerns
China no longer provides Mark Zuckerberg with a convenient counterargument against privacy rules in the Western world. Chinese consumers are increasingly standing up to internet giants for their digital privacy in an unprecedented way. Read more here.
Apps for children must offer privacy by default
Apps, social media platforms and online games that are specifically targeted at children in the UK will now have to put privacy at the heart of their design. A code of practice outlining how children’s data should be protected has come into force and firms have 12 months to comply with the new rules. Read more here.
Remote learning during pandemic brings privacy risks
The coronavirus pandemic is adding another wrinkle to an already unusual back-to-school season: privacy risks. The mass shift to remote learning in many US school districts is pushing students to use apps and other digital tools that could expose their personal data. Read more here. (Wall Street Journal)
Image credit: Brown headed Worm eating Warbler via John James Audubon’s Birds of America
