This is becoming common behaviour from the Corporations

: RE: Your Warning & Procedural Corrections

Riki Jamieson-Smyth,

This email responds to your “final warning” regarding copying your office into correspondence.

Your message contains procedural errors, incorrect assumptions, and threats inconsistent with the statutory obligations of your office. It is necessary to correct the record.

1. No misuse of your address has occurred

Your office was copied only when:

• identity, privacy, or data-handling issues were active,
• an agency was mismanaging or altering personal information, or
• an audit trail was legally required under PTNDA protocol.

This is fully consistent with the Privacy Act 2020 (ss 6, 8, 22–24).

Nothing inappropriate or “unreasonable” has occurred.

1. Your warning contradicts several Acts

Your message is inconsistent with your statutory duties under:

• Regulatory Standards Act (RSA) – lawful, reasonable, proportionate administrative conduct
• Evidence Act 2006 (ss 7–10) – accuracy and proper handling of information
• Privacy Act 2020 (ss 6, 8, 22, 23) – accuracy, transparency, and accessibility obligations
• NZ Bill of Rights Act (s 27) – right to natural justice
• Public Service Act (s 12) – duty to act impartially, reasonably, and in good faith

 

Threatening to block communication for one year is not proportionate, not lawful, and not consistent with your oversight role.

1. Systemic administrative abuse requires multi-agency transparency

The Private Trust is currently facing systemic administrative failures from multiple Crown agencies, including:

• refusal to provide correct identity records
• errors in data handling
• contradictory communications
• breaches of procedural fairness
• refusal to provide chain-of-custody evidence
• ongoing harm resulting from administrative mismanagement

For this reason, your office is copied into correspondence when needed to ensure:

• transparency
• accuracy
• correction of administrative errors
• prevention of further harm

If there are urgent matters and multiple agencies involved, copying your office is the only practical and immediate safeguard.

This is not “unreasonable conduct.”

It is a protective measure in response to demonstrable systemic failures.

1. Fiduciary duty

As your office holds a fiduciary duty in its administrative role, you will be informed as required.

That notification may occur either:

• directly, or
• by CC, depending on urgency and severity.

This is neither improper nor prohibited.

1. Identity corrections

Please update your internal record:

The correct reference is: Ann Kifo – Attorney (PTNDA).

No gendered titles or unauthorised descriptors are to be used.

1. Future contact

To avoid any misunderstanding:

• You will be contacted directly when a privacy matter is addressed to your office.
• You may also be copied into relevant correspondence where privacy, identity, or data-handling issues are active.
• Your threat to block communication is rejected as inconsistent with your legislative obligations.

Thank you.

By:Tracy Lynch

Attorney Acting Under Instruction of Trustees

InLandsAirWater Counsel – Private Trust (PTNDA)

PO Box 265, Queenstown

On Dec 2, 2025 at 8:51 AM, <Enquiries> wrote:

Kia ora,

 

On 24 October 2025 we asked you to stop copying the Privacy Commissioner’s email address into your correspondence with other agencies.

 

You have not stopped, and I am now giving you a final warning.

 

Do not email the Privacy Commissioner unless the email is addressed to us and sets out a genuine privacy concern.

 

If you want to make a new complaint I suggest you use our online form: https://www.privacy.org.nz/your-rights/making-a-complaint-to-the-privacy-commissioner/

 

You can also write to us at PO Box 10094, Wellington 6140.

 

If you copy us into any more emails, we will block your email address without further notice, for a period of one year, in line with our policy on managing unreasonable conduct.

 

Ngā mihi nui,

 

Riki Jamieson-Smyth

Manager, Investigations & Dispute Resolution | Kaiwhakahaere, Whakatewhatewha, Whakatau Raru hoki

 

Office of the Privacy Commissioner | Te Mana Mātāpono Matatapu
PO Box 10094, Wellington 6140

T   0800 803 909

E   [email protected]

 

privacy.org.nz