Annex 1: OIA and Privacy Act Issues
Official Information Act 1982
The contents of any submissions provided to the Ministry in response to this discussion paper will be among the information held which is subject to public release under the Official Information Act 1982. If the Ministry receives a request for information contained in a submission, we would be required to consider release of the submission, in whole or in part, in terms of the criteria set out in the Act. The Act would require us to make the information available unless we consider that there is good reason, pursuant to the Act, to withhold the information, and that that reason outweighs the desirability, in the public interest, of making the information available.
The criteria (contained in section 9 of the Official Information Act) most likely to be relevant to a decision to withhold requested information in the present case are:
- The protection of the privacy of natural persons, including that of deceased natural persons.
- The protection of information where the making available of the information:
- would disclose a trade secret; or
- would be likely unreasonably to prejudice the commercial position of the person who supplied or who is the subject of the information.
- The protection of information which is subject to an obligation of confidence or which any person has been or could be compelled to provide under the authority of any enactment, where the making available of the information:
- would be likely to prejudice the supply of similar information, or information from the same source, and it is in the public interest that such information should continue to be supplied; or
- would be likely otherwise to damage the public interest.
It is the Ministry's normal practice to prepare a summary of submissions received, together with the Ministry's responses.
In providing your submission, please advise us if you have any objections to the release of any information contained in your submission, and, if you do object, the parts of your submission that you would wish withheld, and the grounds for withholding. The Ministry will carefully review any representations that you make in this regard, in preparing and releasing any summary, and in considering any formal Official Information Act requests that might be received in the future.
Privacy Act 1993
The Privacy Act 1993 establishes certain principles with respect to the collection, use and disclosure, by various agencies including the Ministry, of information relating to individuals, and access by individuals to information relating to them held by such agencies. Such personal information means information about an identifiable natural person, other than a deceased natural person.
Any personal information that you supply to the Ministry in the course of making a submission will be used by the Ministry in conjunction with consideration of matters covered by this discussion paper only.
It is the Ministry's normal practice to name the parties making submissions when preparing any summary of submissions. Your name will be included in any such summary unless you inform the Ministry otherwise. In order to indicate your wishes, or to view the personal information held about you in respect of the matters covered by this discussion paper, or to request correction of that information, please contact the Manager, Communications Policy, Ministry of Commerce, Ph 04-472 0030.
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