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Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Act 2021

Preliminary provisions

3: Purpose of this Act

You could also call this:

"Recording Life Events for Official Records"

Illustration for Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Act 2021

The purpose of this Act is to make sure information about births, deaths, marriages, and other important life events is recorded and verified. You can think of it as a way to collect important information for the government about health and other matters. This Act also helps create official records of these life events, which can be used as evidence of your identity, age, and citizenship.

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM7273508.

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Part 1Preliminary provisions

3Purpose of this Act

  1. The purpose of this Act is—

  2. to require the notification, registration, and verification of information relating to births, deaths, marriages, civil unions, name changes, adoptions, and sex so as to provide—
    1. a source of demographic information and other important information for government about health, mortality, and other matters; and
      1. an official record of births, deaths, marriages, civil unions, and name changes that can be used as evidence of those events and of age, identity, descent, whakapapa, and New Zealand citizenship; and
      2. to regulate access to, and disclosure of, information recorded under this Act; and
        1. to regulate the provision and effect of birth certificates, death certificates, marriage certificates, civil union certificates, and name-change certificates.

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