A study of New Zealanders’ attitudes to privacy shows higher levels of concern among Māori. The biennial privacy survey of nearly 1200 New Zealanders (including more than 320 Māori) was released last week to mark Privacy Week 2024. Pou ārahi at the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, Shane Heremaia (Ngati Tūwharetoa, Te Arawa), says the survey showed Māori are more concerned about privacy in every way.
Heremaia said Māori were loud on clear about what gets up their noses. “We re committed to address the concerns that Māori raise and answer those concerns,” Heremaia told the Herald. “For instance with the facial recognition technology, Māori have seen that used s a bias toward them and they were being wrongly identified by supermarkets - we have already had a case in Rotorua.
” He said some Māori also had a mistrust of government departments and what their information was being used for. “Privacy concerns drive behaviour. A standout example among Māori is that 32 per cent stated that in the past 12 months they’ve avoided contacting a government department due to privacy concerns.
For non-Māori that figure is 14 per cent,” he said. Māori are more likely to also have avoided doing a range of other activities due to privacy concerns, including using social media (44 per cent v 32 per cent non-Māori), online shopping (43 per cent to 26 per cent), online dating (41 per cent v 26 per cent), signing up for loyalty cards (36 per cent v 22 per c.