Law and the Internet

The Internet has transformed communications in New Zealand as the number of information sources easily available to the public has exploded from barely a dozen media outlets to thousands of websites, blogs, Facebook pages and Tweets on Twitter. 

The intersect of law and technology is an area that strikes at the heart of many of the important issues facing the Internet today.

Some of these issues include:

• Undermining of suppression orders
• Lack of jurisdiction over material hosted outside NZ
• Online discussion of crimes and trials potentially being a contempt of court
• Jurors who “Google”
• How deleting a story doesn’t remove it from caches and syndication feeds
• How do media and Internet publishers find out what actually has been the subject of a suppression order?
• Online criminal offending databases, and the right to a fair trial
• Is education or incarceration needed for Internet publishers who commit contempt?

The News Media Meets ‘New Media’ - March 2012

This Issues Paper was issued by the Law Commission in December 2011 in response to the Government’s request for the Law Commission to review the adequacy of the regulatory environment in which New Zealand’s news media is operating in the digital area.

InternetNZ submitted a response on 12 March 2012.

Name Suppression Workshop - February 2011

InternetNZ convened a public workshop in February 2011 to examine the vexed issue of name suppression in the digital age.

The workshop focused specifically on a section in the Criminal Procedure (Reform and Modernisation) Bill that creates a new offence for ISPs who host material that breaches suppression orders. The idea of a national register of suppression orders was also explored.

A video recording of the workshop is available at the following link:
www.r2.co.nz/20110216

R v the Internet Seminar - December 2009

InternetNZ, the Law Commission and the Ministry of Justice hosted a seminar in December 2009 for legal, media and Internet professionals to discuss issues around suppression orders, contempt of court and the Internet.

A video recording of the seminar is available at the following link:
www.r2.co.nz/20091203