Privacy impact assessment for email subscriptions

Recommendations from Stats NZ's privacy team

We recommend that you:

• Discuss updating the Privacy Statement with the Privacy team.
• Complete the security certification and accreditation (C&A) for miEmail before using the service.
• Complete a C&A and privacy impact assessment (PIA) for OneView CRM if it is still in use. Contact the Customised Data Request team.
• Contact the Data and Information Management team before destroying any information.
• Complete a retroactive C&A PIA for Mailchimp.

Summary

There are members of the public who have a business, economic, political, or personal interest in immediately receiving Stats NZ statistical information once it is due for release. The most common and fair method for distributing this information is via scheduled email. To be on the mailing list for such releases and newsletters, an individual either contacts Stats NZ or completes a subscription form on the Stats NZ website, and they will then be added to the email subscribers list for the scheduled releases and newsletters. At the same time, customised data subscriptions are also emailed out when data is released as scheduled on the release calendar.

Currently the Stats NZ Publishing team uses Lotus Notes to manage emails for both statistical releases and customised data subscriptions. We know that this service is highly valued by our customers. However, Lotus Notes is an unsupported legacy system which does not work reliably. We receive frequent complaints from customers about not receiving emails or being unable to unsubscribe. This also means we are non-compliant with the Privacy Act as we cannot reliably unsubscribe customers and delete their data.

The Email Subscriptions project is implementing a new secure and supported email system called miEmail to move the statistical release and customised data subscription emails from Lotus Notes. The miEmail system offers the opportunity for other Stats NZ business units to use a common, secure, C&A accredited platform to run email campaigns, so External Affairs and Census Customer Engagement will also use miEmail and close their Mailchimp account.

ISBN 978-1-991307-74-3 (online)