19Commissioner's duty of confidentiality

1. The Commissioner and every person employed in the office of the Commissioner—

2. must keep confidential all matters that come to their knowledge in the performance of their functions; and
3. must not communicate any of those matters to any person except for the purpose of carrying out their functions under or giving effect to this Act.

4. The Commissioner and every person employed in the office of the Commissioner—

5. are officers of a public service agency for the purposes of sections 78, 78AA, and 78A of the Crimes Act 1961 and section 20A of the Summary Offences Act 1981:
6. are officials for the purposes of sections 105 and 105A of the Crimes Act 1961.

7. Nothing in information privacy principle 6 set out in section 22 of the Privacy Act 2020 (access to personal information) applies in respect of any information held by the office of the Commissioner that relates to any investigation conducted by the Commissioner under this Act, other than any document (as defined in section 7(1) of the Privacy Act 2020) that comes into existence before the commencement of that investigation.