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New Zealand law explained for everyone

Privacy Act 2020

Complaints, investigations, and proceedings - Investigations by Commissioner

84: Referral of complaint to Director without completing investigation

You could also call this:

“Sending complaints to the Director before finishing the investigation”

If you make a complaint about a privacy issue, the Privacy Commissioner can look into it. However, sometimes the Commissioner might decide to send your complaint to the Director without finishing the investigation. This can happen in a few situations:

If the Commissioner can’t get the people involved to agree on a solution or promise to do better, they might send it to the Director.

Also, if someone agreed to do something to fix the problem before, but didn’t follow through, the Commissioner might send it to the Director.

Lastly, if it looks like someone did something that goes against what they promised in an earlier agreement about privacy (either under this law or the old Privacy Act from 1993), the Commissioner might send it to the Director.

The Director can then decide what to do next about your complaint.

This text is automatically generated. It might be out of date or be missing some parts. Find out more about how we do this.

View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=LMS50884.

Topics:
Rights and equality > Privacy
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83: Exploring possibility of settlement and assurance during investigation, or

“Commissioner can seek agreements or promises during investigations to resolve issues”

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85: Compulsory conferences of parties to complaint, or

“The Privacy Commissioner can require meetings to resolve complaints”

Part 5 Complaints, investigations, and proceedings
Investigations by Commissioner

84Referral of complaint to Director without completing investigation

  1. The Commissioner may refer the complaint or the matter that is the subject of the investigation to the Director without conducting any further investigation if—

  2. the Commissioner is unable to secure a settlement or a satisfactory assurance under section 83; or
    1. it appears that a term of settlement previously secured between the agency and the aggrieved individual or aggrieved individuals has not been complied with; or
      1. it appears that the action that is the subject of the complaint or that gave rise to the investigation was done in contravention of any term of settlement or an assurance previously secured under this Act or the Privacy Act 1993.

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