22 September 2020
Shane Gibson
[email address]
Kia ora Shane
Thank you for your email of 7 July 2020 to the Ministry of Education (the Ministry) requesting the
following information:
Please provide copies of all Memorandum of Understanding (MOU’s) signed in the last five years
related to the sharing of data to organisations outside your organisation.
Your request has been considered under the Official Information Act 1982 (the Act).
The Ministry has a centralised information sharing team that has oversight of information sharing
agreements between the Ministry and other organisations. The Ministry maintains a centralised
Information Sharing Catalogue as part of its overall management of these agreements. Al
information sharing agreements are subject to robust governance and privacy processes, and are
approved and signed off by the Ministry’s Chief Data Steward.
An information sharing Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) is not an authorising document, but
rather a document that records the legal authority for the sharing and the agreed controls and
processes required to ensure that the transmission, use and security of the information shared is
compliant with the Privacy Act. In some cases we have not been able to locate fully signed copies
of the MOU’s. These MOU’s are stil operational/were operational within the last five years, so we
have included them in our response.
Approved Information Sharing Agreements (AISA’s), primarily developed in partnership with other
government agencies, are subject to mandatory development processes including public
consultation, prior to sign-off through formal Cabinet processes.
OIA: 1234647
National Office, Mātauranga House, 33 Bowen Street, Wellington 6011
PO Box 1666, Wellington 6140. Phone: +64 4 463 8000 Fax: +64 4 463 8001
We have identified copies of 51 Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) signed in the last 5 years
relating to the sharing of information by the Ministry. These are detailed in
Appendix A attached
along with our decisions on release.
We are releasing 43 documents in full, withholding one in full and releasing the remaining three
documents in part under the following sections of the Act:
6(c) as
the making available of that information would be likely to prejudice the
maintenance of the law, including the prevention, investigation, and detection of offences,
and the right to a fair trial; and
9(2)(a),
to protect the privacy of natural persons.
Where applicable, we consider that in this particular case the need to withhold information under
sections 9(2)(a) of the Act is not outweighed by any other considerations under section 9(1) of the
Act.
The Ministry is a party to four Approved Information Sharing Agreements (AISAs), detailed in
Appendix A, which are an instrument for sharing personal information under Part 9A of the Privacy
Act 1993. We are therefore refusing this part of the request under section 18(d) of the Act as the
information is publicly available on the Office of the Privacy Commissioner’s website at the following
link:
https:/ privacy.org.nz/privacy-for-agencies/information-sharing/approved-
information-sharing-agreements/
You have the right to ask an Ombudsman to review this decision. You can do this by writing to
[email address] or Office of the Ombudsman, PO Box 10152, Wellington 6143.
Ngā mihi
Alex Brunt
Acting Deputy Secretary
Evidence Data and Knowledge
OIA: 1234647
National Office, Mātauranga House, 33 Bowen Street, Wellington 6011
PO Box 1666, Wellington 6140. Phone: +64 4 463 8000 Fax: +64 4 463 8001