Richard

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Does the Privacy Act 2020 narrow the scope of the ‘storage or processing’ holding provision?

Quick summary: This post addresses the issue of whether section 11 of the Privacy Act 2020 narrows the scope of its predecessor, section 3(4) of the Privacy Act 1993. If it does, there could be adverse practical implications for agencies involved with outsourced storage or processing of personal information. The short answer? No, despite its wording, I don’t think it does. We can keep calm and carry on.

Introduction

If you work frequently on issues under the Privacy Act, one of the topics you’ll have addressed over the years is the position where an agency (let’s call it the “Primary Agency”) uses another agency or organisation (let’s call it the “Processing Agency”) to store or process personal information for the Primary Agency. In this scenario, under section 3(4) of the Privacy Act 1993, the personal information is deemed to be held by the Primary Agency, and not the Processing Agency, as long as the Processing Agency doesn’t use or disclose the information for its own purposes.

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