Guidelines for use of personal data by Kiwi firms under review

A year after the launch of the guidelines, the authors are seeking valuable feedback from the business and technology community

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We want the guidelines to be a useful and usable tool that reflects what works for end users, not a document that sits on the shelf

Dame Diane Robertson

A year after the launch of the draft NZ Guidelines for Trusted Data Use: ‘A Path to Social Licence’, the authors have begun to explore how useful the guidelines are for organisations, and what updates may be needed.

The Data Futures Partnership set out the eight questions that people expect to be answered before they are comfortable sharing personal information.

The guidelines aim to provide advice to organisations on the kinds of answers New Zealanders are likely to find acceptable.

Source: A Path to Social License: Guidelines for Trusted Data Use

Three former members of the Data Futures Partnership Working Group - Dame Diane Robertson (chair), AUT professor Rhema Vaithianathan and John Whitehead, former Secretary to the Treasury - are encouraging organisations and individuals to try out the guidelines and share feedback on what will make them more user friendly.

Dame Diane says the group wants the next version of the guidelines shaped by feedback from as many diverse individuals and organisations as possible.

The updated guidelines will be published in December 2018.

Stats NZ CEO Liz MacPherson: ‘Data, unlike gold, is a renewable resource, but in order for it to be sustainable we need to maintain the trust and confidence of people that give it to us’

“When we launched the guidelines we built in the ‘test drive’ phase, to allow people to have a go, and tell us what works and what doesn’t,” she says.

“That is because we want the guidelines to be a useful and usable tool that reflects what works for end users, not a document that sits on the shelf.

‘Be fully transparent about intended use of data’

“In the last year, we have heard from many large and small organisations that have made use of the guidelines, but we still want to hear from more.

“We are looking for people with an interest in improving trusted data use by their organisations to give us less than an hour of their time to try out the guidelines.”

She says those interested can meet with a member of her team (through info@datafutures.co.nz), and talk about possible use cases and give their feedback.

‘We need to be careful that just because we have that data we can use, doesn’t mean we should,’ says Dame Diane Robertson