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Supplementary Order Paper No 358

No 358

House of Representatives

Supplementary Order Paper

Wednesday, 11 September 2019

End of Life Choice Bill

Proposed amendment to SOP No 259

Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki, in Committee, to move the following amendment:

Clause 21

Replace clause 21(3) (page 19) with:

(3)

The Registrar must—

(a)

consult the Privacy Commissioner—

(i)

before establishing the register; and

(ii)

at regular intervals, no less frequently than once in each 12-month period, while maintaining the register; and

(b)

act upon any recommendations relating to privacy made by the Privacy Commissioner.

Explanatory note

This Supplementary Order Paper amends Supplementary Order Paper No 259 amending the End of Life Choice Bill by providing some guidance about the consultation required by the Registrar of the Privacy Commissioner.

The information held on the register will be crucially important to the lives—and deaths—of many New Zealanders and the privacy implications can hardly be understated.

Matters of policy and practice in relation to protecting privacy should be reviewed frequently. It is not enough to require simply that consultation take place at “regular intervals”, as regularity is not the same as frequency. For example, a consultation exercise once every 10 years is regular but it is not nearly frequent enough for the purposes of clause 21(3).