You can ask for personal information you think we might hold about you.
The Privacy Act 2020 is the law that governs how organisations collect, use, and share personal information. The Act also gives you the right to access information about yourself, and correct it if it’s wrong.
Contact us by email or post to ask for personal information you think we might hold about you.
Email: information@gcsb.govt.nz
Post: GCSB, PO Box 12209, Wellington 6144
When making your request, include the following information:
The Privacy Act 2020 requires agencies to be satisfied about the identity of an individual before responding to a request so we do not reveal personal information to the wrong person. The easiest way to do this is for you to include a scanned copy or photograph of your photo identification, such as a driver’s licence, with your request.
We may ask for more details if we need to clarify an aspect of your request.
The Office of the Privacy Commissioner’s website has an AboutMe tool that will help you create your request and automatically email it to us.
Go to the AboutMe tool(external link) on the Office of the Privacy Commissioner website.
Requests for information about other people are generally dealt with under the Official Information Act.
Read about requesting information under the Official Information Act.
You can also contact us by email or post so we can explain what is required if you want to request information about someone else:
Email: information@gcsb.govt.nz
Post: GCSB, PO Box 12209, Wellington 6144
We’ll acknowledge your request and aim to reply within 20 working days.
We may need more time to respond. If this happens, we’ll tell you how much longer it will take.
If you ask for information held by another New Zealand government agency we will transfer it and let you know we have done this.
We try to be as open as possible about what we do. But because some aspects of our work would stop being effective if made public, we may need to respond to your request for information with "We can neither confirm nor deny the existence or non-existence of information".
If you receive a "neither confirm nor deny" response this does not mean that we are investigating you, that you pose a security risk, or that we hold information about you.
If you’re unhappy with our response to your request, contact us first to see if we can resolve the issue.
If we can’t resolve the issue, you can complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner.
Complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner(external link) on the Office of the Privacy Commissioner website.
If the Office of the Privacy Commissioner cannot resolve the issue, you can complain to the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security.
Complain to the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security(external link) on the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security website.