Under the Privacy Act you can request your records (or any information about you) from any organisation that holds your records, including government agencies.
When you ask for your records, organisations legally must provide you access to records that have your personal information (for example, by providing copies of them).
Learn about the limited lawful reasons why you might not get access to records.
Under the Privacy Act you have the right to access your records in the format you prefer, with a few limited exceptions. Learn more about your rights to access records in your preferred formatopen_in_new.
Once an organisation receives your request, they have 20 working days to tell you whether they can get you a copy of your records and when you can expect them.
It will probably take them longer than 20 working days to give you a copy of your records.
If they cannot provide you with some information, they must explain why (for example, if some of your records have been lost or destroyed).
Some parts of your records may be redacted (when information is hidden or removed), and some records might not be given to you because of specific reasons in the Privacy Act. In some rare cases you might also be charged a fee to access your records.
Unfortunately, some people have also found that their records were not taken good care of and were missing, damaged, or destroyed.
Learn more about why you might receive fewer records than expected.
Learn more about your rights under the Privacy Actopen_in_new.
Under the Official Information Act (OIA) you have the right to request access to official information held by government agencies.
'Official information' is any information held by government agencies that is not about you personally. This could be information about policies or about other people.
If you make an OIA request, you may receive information about decisions made about you - but you are unlikely to receive any other personal information about you.
Some examples for what you might make an OIA request for, are:
In general, when you make a request for official information, the government agency must make the information available to you unless there is a good reason not to, as set out in the OIA.
Find out more about your rights to information from government agenciesopen_in_new.
The OIA also applies to:
You can request records about living or deceased whānau.
However, unless you have your whānau members' permission to act for them or power of attorney, organisations do not have to provide their records to you.
Generally, under the Privacy Act, the only information you have the right to is information about yourself.
Learn more about if you can get information about whānau under the Privacy Actopen_in_new.
If you do not have your whānau member's permission or power of attorney, you may still be able to access some information from government agencies.
Under the OIA government agencies will decide whether to let you access information about your living or deceased whānau, balancing your family member’s rights to privacy with your rights as their relative.
If you request records from a court, in a case where you were not the defendant or plaintiff the judicial officer (Judge) of the court may choose to deny your request.
If you request court records from any other organisation, for example Disability Support Services, normal Privacy Act and OIA rules apply, unless there is a court order or rule preventing them from providing these records to you.
Learn more about requesting court records.
Before the Adult Adoption Act was passed in 1985 (the act took effect on 1 March 1986), an adopted person’s birth parents could choose to place a “veto” on their personal information.
This means that any information that could be used to identify the birth parents is not allowed to be provided to the adopted person.
For example, if your birth parents placed a veto on their information, their names will not appear on your pre-adoption birth certificate.
Please select either "I found this useful" or "I did not find this useful"
You have reached the maximum character limit.
You must enable JavaScript to submit this form