Guides for people and whānau
Practical privacy and online safety for life in Aotearoa. Start with what worries you.
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Guides
- Start by working out what you're protectingFifteen minutes with four questions will tell you which privacy advice matters for you, and which you can ignore.
- Account security that holdsSet up your email, phone and money accounts so that a leaked password or a convincing text isn't enough to take them over.
- How scams work on New Zealanders, and what to doThe patterns behind the scams hitting New Zealand phones and inboxes, the one rule that beats most of them, and what to do in the first hour if you've been caught.
- Online harassment and the Harmful Digital Communications ActWhat counts as harmful under New Zealand law, how Netsafe and the courts can help, and how to keep evidence that stands up.
- Intimate images shared or threatenedIf someone has shared, or is threatening to share, intimate images of you. What the law says, how to get images removed, and how to handle sextortion.
- Technology-facilitated abuseWhen someone you know uses phones, accounts, trackers or shared services to watch or control you. How to look for help safely, and how to make changes without making things more dangerous.
- Identity theft and data breach noticesWhat to do when your ID is stolen, or an organisation tells you your information was caught up in a breach. Includes how credit file suppression works in New Zealand.
- Your rights under the Privacy ActThe rights every person in New Zealand has over their personal information, how to use them, and what to do when an organisation won't play fair.
- Getting your address off New Zealand's public registersThe electoral roll, the rates database and the Companies Register publish more home addresses than any data broker. What each one shows, and how to reduce it.
- Privacy for people in higher-risk rolesFor candidates, journalists, health and justice workers, public servants, advocates and anyone with a public profile. The extra steps that matter when strangers might want to find you.
Tools for this
Work through it step by step. Everything runs in your browser.
- Personal exposure auditCheck the places your name, address and routines are published, and fix what you can.
- Request letter builderAsk an organisation for your information, ask for a correction, or chase a late reply.
- Digital safety planA worksheet for planning changes to devices and accounts safely, with an advocate if you have one.