No pandemic or nosey minister should be able to justify the trampling of Kiwis’ right to privacy. Giving a Government department, the tax man no less, the power to force Kiwis to disclose intimate details about how they spend their money and their personal family dynamics is totally unprecedented.

The project makes a mockery of the principles of the Privacy Act and we have written to the Privacy Commissioner requesting a review.

What makes the situation worse is how vague and evasive the Government has been about how the data will be used and who will have access to it. In one document, the IRD assures Kiwis that “information collected in this project will only be used for the project,” but later in the same document they state they “will only share identifiable information with other agencies in very unusual circumstances”. Just how unusual are these circumstances? Haven’t we recently seen other legislation passed by this Government cause Kiwis’ spending habits to be trawled through to restrict borrowing?

It doesn’t take a genius to see that giving nosey government officials access to bank statements and personal information has nothing to do with Covid-19. Sadly the power to snoop didn’t get us out of lockdown any faster.

Also, you don’t need to be a political strategist to know that lumping the snooping powers into a bill with the introduction of a new tax bracket is the perfect smoke screen. While everyone was looking over there, Nosey Parker was drilling holes in Kiwis’ privacy rights.

But even if you had known about this at the time, Nosey Parker wasn’t interested in hearing your opinion. No public consultation, no expert submissions, no scrutiny.

Nosey Parker might have started with probing the wealthy, but will the Government be able to resist the temptation to expand their project?

They’d love to know how many cars you own, how many kids are dependent on you, and how often you travel overseas for holidays. Think of all the ways they could use that data!

Unless we all stand up to Minister Nosey Parker and the Government now, the IRD may soon be asking intrusive questions of all Kiwis and sharing that data as they see fit.

The nosey parkers at IRD should have no right to know how much you spend on travel or helping out family. Join us in telling the Government that your spending habits and family dynamics are none of their business.