If you have a copy of your records, then you can do whatever you want with your copy. Get some ideas on what you could do with your copy of your records.
However, it is different with the original versions of your records. In general, you own the information about you in your records, but the actual record (for example, the piece of paper, electronic file, video tape, computer disc) is owned by the record holder.
The record holder might be the organisation that:
The law says that organisations must not keep personal information for longer than they need it.
However, record holders can continue to keep your records if they have a lawful reason to do so. And in some cases, they might be legally required to keep records.
For example, they might want to keep records:
One recommendation from the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was to stop the disposal of people's records while work is being done to improve practices around records.
So, Archives NZ created:
Under this instruction, government record holders must not destroy certain types of records about people who have lived in places like children’s homes, institutions, hospitals, schools, youth justice facilities, borstals, foster families, adoptive families, or with whānau and kin.
This instruction is a set of rules that must be followed by government agencies (including non-government organisations that are contracted by government agencies to provide care services).
Archives NZ also recommends that other organisations use the 'care records definition’ to help them understand which types of records they should create and look after.
This includes:
Learn more about what records the care records instruction applies toopen_in_new.
The instruction currently has no end date. The Chief Archivist of Archives NZ will decide when the instruction is no longer needed, and any new rules.
When the instruction ends, government agencies (or organisations contracted to government agencies) may need to transfer your records to Archives NZ. However, they may be able to give you the original records about you, if they have a Disposal Authority allowing it.
A Disposal Authority is an authority to dispose of records, that is approved by the Chief Archivist of Archives NZ. The most common forms of disposal are:
A Disposal Authority can also allow the transfer of records to the person they are about.
Before the Chief Archivist of Archives NZ decides on what happens to records that are no longer in uses (a Disposal Authority), they must ask for feedback from the New Zealand public and allow at least 30 days for this. The notice is called an Intention to Dispose.
Find the Intentions to Dispose that are waiting for public feedback right now open_in_new
You can give feedback about things like how long you think a type of record should be kept, and what should happen to those records when they are no longer needed.
Find out how to give feedback on an Intention to Disposeopen_in_new
Learn more about the Intention to Dispose processopen_in_new
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