The EU Commission will publish its decision on whether New Zealand's data protection regime offers adequate data protection in October 2012, a spokesperson for the EU Commission told DataGuidance on 26 September. The decision will follow the Article 29 Working Party (WP29)'s opinion on New Zealand, adopted on 4 April 2011, which found that the country ensures an adequate level of protection within the meaning of the Data Protection Directive (95/46/EC).

Katrine Evans, the country's Assistant Privacy Commissioner, told DataGuidance: "Following the positive opinion from the Article 29 Working Party, the next steps in the adequacy process are to get the tick from the Article 31 Group and the sign-off from the European Commission itself. As New Zealand has already made the necessary changes to bring our law into line, we're not anticipating having to do anything further. "

Kathryn Dalziel, Partner at Taylor Shaw Barristers & Solicitors in New Zealand, told DataGuidance that the EU Commission has sufficient information to determine adequacy and there should be no barrier to that finding.

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