hughesdirect.com Employment Legislation

User Name :

Password :

Have you forgotten your password?

Free membership at hughesdirect

Subscribe:

Privacy Act

The main purpose of this act is the promotion and protection of individual privacy. The Privacy Act has potential to impact on many areas of your business and its operations. If you hold information on your employees, clients, suppliers and contractors then you need to be aware of your obligations. Some of the areas that may impact are:

Security cameras in a warehouse situation
Video surveillance
Use of customer information collected for marketing purposes
Personal information collected during recruitment
Obtaining verbal references
Medical information supplied by employees
Performance reviews
Information stored as a result of disciplinary meetings
Payroll information
Internet and e-mail use.

The act deals with the collection, holding, use and disclosure of personal information. It relates to all “agencies”. Essentially that is everyone with the exception in certain circumstances of members of Parliament, courts, tribunals and news media. It does not matter how small your company is, you still have to comply with the legislation.

Anyone for whom you hold personal information must be made aware of the reasons that you are collecting that information, who will hold it and that you will be keeping it. They are also entitled to access to the information and to correct it if it is wrong.

Appointing one of your staff members as your Privacy Officer is a requirement of the Act. A Privacy Officer will help ensure you comply with the requirements of the Act and could save you a lot of time and worry. Training is available through regular workshops undertaken by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner.

Your Privacy Officer should deal with all issues relating to the access and correction of personal information and be the first port of call for complaints and enquiries. They may also review and improve the way your company handles personal information at the moment. If you do not have an internal complaints system the Privacy Officer should implement a suitable procedure. Most complaints that reach the Office of the Privacy Commissioner do so because the complainant does not feel that their complaint has been adequately dealt with by the company.

If you have received a complaint but have not yet appointed a Privacy Officer then you should nominate a person to deal with the issue and keep the complainant informed. If you are unable to resolve the issue then you may refer to the Officer of the Privacy Commissioner.

It is your business and you know what personal information you need and why but don’t assume that the people giving the information are aware of your reasons. Customer information that enables you to deliver a product is fairly obvious but if you are storing a person’s resume and referencing details it may not be so obvious. Usually if you explain your reasons people are quite happy to provide the information you require.

So back to some of those examples:

Marketing

You may market your business products or services to a particular market segment. You may have obtained that information from an agency that sells lists for this purpose, asked a group of customers to fill in questionnaires or phoned people in a particular geographical area. You are perfectly entitled to do any or all of these. The Act does require that you inform the person what the information is being collected for, who gets to see the information and that they have a right of access and ability to correct that information.

Releasing information about staff or customers on the phone

The Privacy Act does not stipulate how you handle these issues only that you decide on a policy and then be open about it.

Security Cameras, Tape and Video recordings

In the call centre environment it is common practice to record all or part of phone conversations. Here privacy issues relate to the collection of personal information. It would be appropriate to tell the staff of your company, about the reasons why you are recording the conversations, who will have access to the recording and the method and length of storage. Secret taping or video footage must have sound reasoning such as collecting evidence of theft and any information relating to people other than those targeted must not be stored without their knowledge. Many businesses use security cameras such as in warehousing without incidence but your reasons need to be carefully considered.

Reference checking

As a prospective employer you will want to collect information about your candidate and gain confirmation by calling previous employers as referees. The most common issue arises when an unfavorable reference results in you not offering a candidate the job. Usually the complaint will surround the unauthorised collection of the reference or that the previous employer was not authorised by the candidate to give a reference. By asking any prospective employee to complete and sign a clear authority to collect personal information from nominated previous employers you can avoid this problem. If you are asked by a prospective employer to give a reference for a previous employee make sure that they have authority to ask you. Your best policy is to ask the employer to fax you a copy of the signature and call them back to verify that they are who they say they are. A useful precaution is to tell the prospective employer that the reference you are about to give is confidential, should not be divulged to any other party and is your opinion only.

E-mails

With the advent of e-mail and the Internet personal and business information can easily be transmitted within and outside your business. You should have a company policy dealing specifically with the use of e-mail and internet in your business and a method of monitoring this use. Inform your staff of the policy and make sure they are aware that e-mail communications are not necessarily secure.

Employee Files

The personal information you hold on your staff such as payroll, performance or medical information should be securely stored. You must provide the information within a reasonable time of the request from a staff member and make any corrections requested or attach a note to the file. Like any personal information common sense prevails. Would you like someone to have access to information of this type held by you?

Further information and a copy of The Privacy Act can be obtained from the Office of the Privacy Commissioner at www.legislation.co.nz.
Or by contacting Hughes Consulting Group on info@hughesdirect.com

More information on this topic

IMPORTANT NOTICE AND DISCLAIMER
This document and all other documents on this website are provided as resources only. They do not purport to constitute or substitute for legal advice. Hughesdirect.com (Pat O’Shea & Associates Limited) do not accept responsibility for the consequences of use of this document nor for any errors/omissions or misdescriptions of any kind. This disclaimer shall be a term of use of this and other documents on this website.