Privacy Commissioner Marie Shroff has criticised state-owned enterprise New Zealand Post for breaching the privacy of thousands of people by selling their information to marketing companies. The 2009 survey, sent to 800,000 letterboxes and via e-mail, and offering prizes for responding, asked a series of questions covering various personal subjects including income.
Ms Shroff commissioned two reports from privacy law and marketing experts and has concluded the survey was a systematic and large-scale breach of privacy principles.
She was concerned that people were unaware that their private information was being sold, Radio New Zealand reports.
But the company said its legal advice was that the surveys did not breach privacy laws. Communications manager John Tulloch said part of NZ Post's business related to direct marketing services and was enshrined in the State Owned Enterprises Act.
While on the subject of the Post Office, we like the Sky TV advert above which demonstrates another reason why NZ Post is losing business--the lack of care shown by its delivery people. Often envelopes are left sticking out of mailbox slots where the rain will soak them, and often the postie will bend and ram through larger envelopes causing severe creasing, when all they need to do is reach behind and put them in the larger compartments designed for milk bottles (in the days when they still existed). Do these post-people care? No.
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