Nicky Hager settles his privacy dispute with Westpac

Nicky Hager has agreed a settlement of his privacy dispute with Westpac. This may be the final chapter in the fallout from the Police’s investigation into Nicky Hager’s book Dirty Politics that included the unlawful raid on his home in 2014.

Under the settlement agreement announced today, Westpac will be significantly tightening its contractual terms in relation to the release of customer information to government agencies, including the Police. From now on, if the Police ask Westpac for information about its customers, Westpac will only confirm whether or not that person is its customer. It will not provide any other customer information except with either a production order, the customer's consent, where it is necessary to prevent or lessen a serious threat to health or safety, or as required by law.

Westpac has apologised to Mr Hager for releasing his information and has agreed to pay his costs and compensation.

Mr Hager said: “This is an important victory for privacy in New Zealand. It will help many people. Four years ago, when this story first broke, a wide range of New Zealanders expressed strong concern about the idea that a person’s banking data could be taken without a warrant.”

“I was confident we were going to prevail before the Human Rights Review Tribunal, but that was likely to have been several years away still. Westpac have done the right thing here by owning up to the breach and putting in place much better procedures to protect against it happening again.”

Felix Geiringer, Mr Hager’s barrister, says that this settles Mr Hager’s last ongoing dispute stemming from the 2014 raid. However, it is not the last word on this privacy issue. Mr Geiringer said: “Westpac’s new terms look good. But what about the other banks? In 2014, they had the same arrangement with the Police as did Westpac. We do not know that anything has changed. And what about other companies holding our private data? Pressure needs to continue on those other institutions until they implement terms like the ones announced today by Westpac.”

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