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 informationopen_in_new (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 a government agency. It can include:
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.
In some rare cases there might be a fee to access official information.
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.
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This Easy Read webpage is about what your rights are when you want to access your records from the time when you were in the guardianship and care of others.
Here access means being able to get the information you want about the time you were in the guardianship and care of others.
Here records means the information an organisation has kept / made about a person.
Here in the care and guardianship of others means when an organisation is put in charge of a person and decides things like:
A guardian is an adult put in change of the care of a person.
A guardian should:
Here a legal right means there is a law that gives you the power to do something like ask for your records.
A law is a rule made by the Government that everybody must follow.
You have the right to ask an organisation like a government agency for your personal information.
Personal information means information about you.
You have the right to access your records under the Privacy Act.
The Privacy Act is a law that tells organisations how information must be:
When you ask for your records organisations should give you:
Click here to learn about the reasons you may not be given access to your records.
There may be some information missing in the records you get.
Sometimes some information may have been redacted from your records.
Redact means hiding / taking out some information in a document.
This could be because there is information about other people in your records.
This is often done with a thick black line.
Click here to learn more about redactions.
There may be reasons under the Privacy Act why an organisation cannot give you all the records you have asked for.
Sometimes you may be asked to pay some money to get your records.
People have told us that their records:
Click here to learn about why you might not get all the information you asked for.
You can contact the Privacy Commissioner if you have not been given the information you asked for.
The work the Privacy Commissioner does is guided by the Privacy Act.
Click here to find out more about your rights under the Privacy Act on the website of the Privacy Commissioner.
This website is not in Easy Read.
You have the right to ask for information from a government agency.
Government agencies must follow the Official Information Act.
The Official Information Act tells government agencies what to do with official information they have.
The Official Information Act is called the OIA for short on this website.
Official information is information the government has that is not personal information.
You can ask for official information.
Official information:
Official information you might get can be things like:
Here policies are the rules that organisations follow to do their work.
Other official information you might get can be complaints made to a government agency about:
Some other organisations have to follow what the OIA says.
These other organisations:
Tertiary education is about education that happens after high school like university.
A school board is a group of people that makes decisions about running a school.
A government agency may let you see information about your whānau / family under the OIA.
They have to decide if it is the best thing to do for your family member.
Usually if you ask for official information it should be given to you.
Click here to find out more about your rights to get information from government agencies on the Ombudsman website.
Information held by a court is not covered by the:
A court is a place where legal things about the law are worked out.
The court may decide not to give you the records you have asked for.
This can be because you were not part of the legal matters that took place in court.
You can ask for court records from other organisations like Disability Support Services.
These places should follow the rules set out in the:
They cannot give you the information if there is a reason like the court has said no.
Click here to learn more about asking for court records.
A law was made in 1986 called the Adult Adoption Act.
Here adoption is a legal word that means:
Before 1986 a birth parent could say no to putting their information on your birth certificate.
Birth parents are the parents when the baby was born.
A birth certificate is a legal document that has information like:
This means if you are the adopted person you:
A pre-adoptive birth certificate is the birth certificate of a baby before they were adopted.
Click here to find out more information about how to ask for a pre-adoptive birth certificate.
Getting your records about when you were in the guardianship and care of others can make you feel lots of things.
It can be good to have someone to talk to about it.
You can talk to your:
Kōnae has information on where to get support if you want to talk about how it feels to get your records.
Click here to find out what support you can get.
These webpages are not in Easy Read.
More Easy Read information is available.
Click here to visit our Easy Read library webpage.
Click here to learn about who made this Easy Read.