[wellylug] NZ laws on Data retention

[bob dugan]

Company records must be held for seven years under Companies Act 1993 s 189.  
Tax records for seven years under Tax Administration Act 1994 s 22.  Even 
where there is no specific legal requirement for retention [as for company 
records], businesses will retain documents in order to comply with Evidence 
Amendment Act (no 2) 1982 in the event of a dispute.  The enforcement period 
for a simple contract is six years [from execution, breach or last 
performance] under Limitations Act 1950 s 4(1) and twelve years for one 
evidenced by a deed under s 4(3).   A 30 year mortage represented by a deed 
may need to be held for 42 years.  Retention periods for documents held by 
government departments is long but uncertain, depending upon ones 
interpretation of provisions from the Official Information Act 1982 and 
Archives Act 1957.  Electronic retention is partially regulated by Electronic 
Transactions Act 2002 ss 25 to 27. 

Bob 



On Tuesday 21 June 2005 09:23, Michael Robinson wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 20, 2005 at 11:35:31PM +1200, Rob Giltrap wrote:
> > The big one is financial records for 7 years but there are other things
> > as well.
> >
> > Life insurance companies must keep all records for the life of the
> > contract (which can be over 50 years).
>
> Loans (mortgages, principally) can be contested in court up to 7
> years *after* the termination of the loan contract.  So for banks,
> the theoretical retention period is 37 years (30 year loan + 7).
>
> There's no law requiring that, of course, so they don't.  As the age of
> the data increases, the likelihood and cost of use decreases, and the
> cost of retention increases -- past a certain point, it's cheaper to
> chuck all the data and plan on settling legal cases...
>     -- michael.