23 February 2024
45 Pipitea Street, Thorndon, Wellington 6011
PO Box 805, Wellington 6140
Phone +64 4 495 7200
Anon via FYI
Email [email address]
[FYI request #25521 email]
Website www.dia.govt.nz
Tēnā koe
Your Official Information Act 1982 request, reference OIA23/24-0530
I am responding to your email of 25 January 2024, requesting information under the Official
Information Act 1982 (the Act). I have attached your request in full at
Appendix A.
The timeframe to respond to your request has been extended by
15 working days to
15
March 2024 under section 15A(1)(b) of the Act. The extension is required because the
necessary consultations to make a decision on the request cannot reasonably be made
within the original time limit.
You have the right, under section 28 of the Act, to seek an investigation and review of my
decision by the Office of the Ombudsman. The postal address of the Office of the
Ombudsman is PO Box 10152, Wellington. Alternatively, you can phone 0800 802 602 or
email [email address].
Nāku noa, nā
Jeremy Cauchi
Director Ministerial, Monitoring, and Capability
Appendix A
Dear Government Chief Privacy Officer Katrine Evans,
According to the Digital.govt.nz website (link):
The GCPO is responsible for:
- providing leadership by setting the vision for privacy across government
- building capability by supporting agencies to lift their capability to meet their privacy
responsibilities
- providing assurance on public sector privacy performance
- engaging with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner and New Zealanders about privacy.
I am a NZ citizen. I am seeking very clear and specific information as to the methods,
programmes or applications that have been approved by the DoIA (e.g., Government Chief
Privacy Officer & Government Information Security Officer) for the sending/receiving private
information (e.g., health information, court documents) electronically, which meet the NZ
standards, regulations, and legislative requirements.
We all know that email is not safe from interception or unauthorised access. Yet, it has been
my experience that many agencies use this method for sending private, sensitive information
electronically, while not taking any type of security measure.
For your convenience, I've listed some of the relevant legislation and standards below.
Section 22 (IPP 5) of the Privacy Act 2020 states:
Storage and security of personal information An agency that holds personal information
must ensure—
(a) that the information is protected, by such security safeguards as are reasonable in the
circumstances to take, against—
(i) loss; and
(ii) access, use, modification, or disclosure that is not authorised by the agency; and
(iii) other misuse; and
(b) that, if it is necessary for the information to be given to a person in connection with the
provision of a service to the agency, everything reasonably within the power of the agency is
done to prevent unauthorised use or unauthorised disclosure of the information.
(1) A health agency that holds health information must ensure—
(a) that the information is protected, by such security safeguards as are reasonable in the
circumstances to take, against—
(i) loss;
(ii) access, use, modification, or disclosure that is not authorised by the agency; and
(iii) other misuse;
(b) that, if it is necessary for the information to be given to a person in connection with the
provision of a service to the health agency, including any storing, processing, or destruction
of the information, everything reasonably within the power of the health agency is done to
prevent unauthorised use or unauthorised disclosure of the information.
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The Health Information Privacy Code 2020 includes two more clauses to rule 5.
(c) that, where a document containing health information is not to be kept, the document is
disposed of in a manner that preserves the privacy of the individual.
(2) This rule applies to health information obtained before or after the commencement of this
code.
Health information and other information security standards include, but are not limited to:
• Ministry of Health: HISO 10029 and HISO 10064; • Center for Internet ecurity (CIS) • CERT
NZ Top Ten:
• Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) Cloud Controls Matrix:
• Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) (US):
• ISO 27001 Information Security Management Standard:
• ISO 27002 Information Technology – Security Techniques – Code of practice for information
security controls • ISO 27799 Health informatics – Information Security Management in
health using ISO/IEC 27002:
• New Zealand Information Security Manual (NZISM):
• Protective Security Requirements (PSR)( link) • National Cyber Security Centre • Information
security management protocol (link) • New Zealand Government Security Classification
System
This is also a request for all risk assessments undertaken by the DIA (any of the Government
Chiefs) for the use of email to transfer private information (e.g., health information or court
documents) by NZ Agencies (e.g., MoH, Health NZ, ACC, MoJ, ...). If your office has not
conducted any risk assessments for any government agencies, then I request your assistance
and ask you transfer this part of my request to the proper agency/organisation.
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