When we invited you to book your vaccination, we used contact details collected from your interactions with our health system, such as general practitioners.
Last updated: 2 November 2021
How we invited you to get a vaccination
It is important that everyone in New Zealand is given the opportunity to be vaccinated against COVID-19. It is your choice whether to make the appointment or not. For us to invite you to receive your vaccination, we used personal information collected by us in our role as the Ministry of Health.
The Ministry prepares an annual Health Service Utilisation (HSU) dataset for all individuals who have used the New Zealand health system within the last two years. The HSU also includes the National Enrolment Service (NES) which has information from everyone who has enrolled with a general practitioner.
Depending on what information you provided when you first enrolled, this may include your:
- Full name
- Date of birth
- Address
- Contact number
- Email address
We use this information to create a list of the physical addresses held on our NHI database to send a letter to you when you become eligible for your COVID-19 vaccination. We also use this to identify other contact details like your phone number or email address.
Please note the Ministry does not have access to information about why you interacted with the health system or any clinical information about you from these sources.
The Privacy Act 2020 and the Health Information Privacy Code 2020
Whenever we collect your information, we have to let you know why we need it. This is communicated in the Use of Health Information Statement that should be available to you as part of the enrolment process. Your information may be collected:
- to keep you and others safe
- to plan and fund health services
- to carry out authorised research
- to train health care professionals
- to prepare and publish statistics
- to improve government services.
Using the NES contact details to offer you a vaccine complies with the requirements under the Privacy Act 2020 and the Health Information Privacy Code 2020. We use the information consistently with the purpose for which it was collected: Keeping you and others safe.
The Ministry consulted with the Offices of the Privacy Commissioner and the Government Chief Privacy Officer who provided advice to help us to identify and mitigate privacy risks.
Contact us
If you have concerns about your privacy, email [email protected].
If you are not satisfied with our response to any privacy concerns, you can contact the Office of the Privacy Commissioner.