Page updated on: Monday February 5, 2007
Information about yourself as an identifiable individual can be sought under the Privacy Act 1993. Other information (concerning other people, processesor reasons for decisions or the rules used to make a decision) can be sought from the Immigration Service under the Official Information Act (OIA) 1982.
There are various grounds for non disclosure including protection of other’s privacy ,law enforcement and personal safety. Identity of informants, for example, will not be provided. Information must be provided as soon as reasonably practicable and in any case not more than 20 working days after the request.
Urgent disclosure can be requested (eg in a pre removal situation) and a reasonable period to disclose will depend on the circumstances. Requests for information under these acts can only by made by persons in New Zealand or New Zealand citizens overseas but complaints to the Office of the Ombudsmen of illegal, wrong or unreasonable actions or to the Privacy Commissioner of breach of Privacy may be made by non citizens overseas. The way around this for a citizen or NZ base organisation to make an OIA request with the written permission of a person who is offshore. A requester can ask that verbal information (eg verbal advice to the Minister) be summarised in writing.
Both Acts provide for requests to correct inaccurate, misleading, incomplete and out of date information, or if correction is refused to ask for a copy of the alternative version to be attached to the file. Information Privacy Principle 8 requires the Service to take reasonable steps to ensure information is accurate, complete and not misleading before using it.
Complaints of breach of the Privacy Act go to the Privacy Commissioner. Complaints of breach of the Official Information Act go to the Office of the Ombudsmen.
In some cases the Immigration Service will put decision making on hold if a complaint is accepted for consideration but complaints to the Privacy Commissioner (www.privacy.org.nz) or Ombudsmen (www.ombudsmen.govt.nz) will not prevent removal of a person already served with a Removal Order.