Editorial: Privacy is a public issue

The silence has been deafening. Last month, The Dominion Post reported that Privacy Commissioner Marie Shroff believed about two million dna samples kept by the public health system's National Screening Unit since the late 1960s, and "banked" indefinitely, should be destroyed or transferred to a secure authority. The existing set-up, she said, was risky, The Dominion Post writes.

That is one point of view and it is compelling. But missing has been the public countervailing argument. What does, for example, the Health Ministry think? Does the Office of the Ombudsmen have an opinion? What say doctors and forensic scientists? Police?

What are the public policy reasons for maintaining the status quo against tightening procedures? And why is public discourse on the public-interest aspect of public policy left to lone critics and newspaper editors?

It is unhealthy in a democracy a construct founded on openness for only certain of its number to participate.

Ms Shroff might be right that the NSU's management of the dna samples needs review. But hers is surely not the only opinion.

Yet once more, when privacy is at issue, others seem unwilling to champion the public's right to know. Why? Has secrecy become this community's default position? Surely not, given Kiwis' willingness to lay their lives bare on social networking sites.

As Ms Shroff says, the "dizzying pace" of technology creates genuine societal challenges, for NSU database managers as well as for others. She makes the point that the dna samples might be used, for example, for genetic screening for employment purposes or for solving crimes.

Some will wonder what is wrong with that, especially the latter. Surely if a sample can rule in or more importantly, rule out a suspect in a crime, we should debate the value of such a use?

The privacy commission concept was born at a time when lobbyists held legitimate concerns at the volume of information the Government held about the populace and how government agencies might "cross-match" that data.

Today, New Zealanders know they can rely on the office of the privacy commissioner to make the case for privacy in a raft of spheres.

Though the Privacy Act includes public-interest exceptions, however, who can the public really rely on to make the case for the public interest? Sometimes, governments hold information about which good reason exists to make it widely known, such as the fact of births, deaths and marriages, property ownership, values and rates liability, and bankruptcies.

But, as was evident last year when officials tried to limit access to the births and deaths public register, no official had the concomitant task of countering their arguments in the public interest. It was left to those deemed to be "special pleading".

Someone needs to be given that role. Just as New Zealanders' apparently increasing desire to keep their lives "private" is bewildering, so too is their apparent community willingness to leave some aspects of public discourse to a few with a particular agenda.

- © Fairfax NZ News