Right to Access Personal Information:

Individuals have the right to request access to any personal information that an agency holds about them. The agency must provide this information within a reasonable timeframe, typically within 20 working days.

The information must be provided in a way that is understandable, and individuals can ask for a copy of the information.

Right to Request Deletion (Right to Erasure):

Although not as extensive as the "right to be forgotten" in some jurisdictions, individuals in New Zealand can request that their personal information be deleted if it is no longer needed for the purpose it was collected, or if it is being held unlawfully.

Agencies are generally required to comply with such requests unless there is a lawful reason to retain the information

In the context of The Privacy Act 2020, an "agency" is (relevant parts)

Private Sector Organizations:

Companies, businesses, and non-profit organizations that collect, use, or store personal information.

Note: this is me querying ChatGPT about the privacy act, I'm not a privacy act expert.

[–] Dave 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Also not an expert. I think it only applies if you store the info.

I'd guess number plates may not considered personally identifiable information, or they might be in general but it would be easy enough to hash them to avoid storing this info. You'd still get the info on how often certain plates come up.

Smart screens guessing your emotion wouldn't need to store this info. Once you stopped interacting the info isn't useful and can be discarded.

The ads at Wellington Station with the cameras might just be working out how many people read them.

It really depends on how they are using it the info. It seems most of the time you could have the device get an answer (is this person looking at me? How are they feeling? How often does this vehicle drive past) without having to store personally identifiable information.

[–] absGeekNZ 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Maybe true, but the issue here is that you don't know who / what the companies are, if they are gathering the data to store.

According to ChatGPT:

Why a License Plate is Considered PII:

Identifiability:
A license plate is a unique identifier associated with a specific vehicle. While the license plate itself may not directly identify an individual, it can often be linked to the owner of the vehicle through registration records. If an organization has access to those records or the ability to link the plate to an individual, the license plate becomes personally identifiable information.

So a license plate could be considered PII, so it would be contingent on if they were storing the data.

[–] Dave 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The Privacy Commissioner has equally ambiguous information.

It says that a license plate itself isn't but the owners details are.

But you can use the plate to look up the owner so why wouldn't the plate be considered PII?

[–] absGeekNZ 2 points 3 months ago

This is a grey area, which shouldn't be. Most license plates are registered to individuals, which means that most license plates are a form of PII.