In both New Zealand and Australia, it is often assumed that privacy ends when life does. The Privacy Acts in New Zealand and Australia are both primarily concerned with information about living individuals. Once a person dies, the rights of access and correction no longer exist along with other obligations under the respective Privacy Act. But stopping the analysis there misses most of what actually matters in practice, individuals.

In New Zealand, cats are everywhere — from beloved companions curled up on sofas to stealthy hunters roaming the bush at night. But as our relationship with animals evolves, an interesting question arises: do cats have privacy rights? And if not, should they?

When organisations in New Zealand talk about personal information, two words often surface: anonymisation and pseudonymisation. They are often used interchangeably but the difference between them is more than semantics. It defines whether the Privacy Act 2020 applies and how much risk individuals are exposed to.