Privacy - some of us don’t want anyone knowing our business, whereas others happily share every what, who, when and where about their lives. Where we are on this spectrum will come down to the trust we have in the organisation holding our information.

In this digital age, privacy and trust affect us all. A breach can have a lasting impacts.

The Privacy Commissioner runs its annual Privacy Week in May with the aim of building awareness about our privacy rights in the digital age. There are loads of great resources to help keep you safe. We have put together a summary of what you need to know.

The Debtfix five-week debt bootcamp kicks off on Monday 9 May, 2022.

Sign up for this free guided programme, now.

Privacy is a funny old thing. Some of us don’t want anyone knowing our business, whereas others happily share every what, who, when and where about our lives.

Often it comes down to our trust in an organisation that has our information, and for some unfathomable reason, many people trust social media platforms more than secure websites.

From 9-14 May 2022 the Privacy Commissioner is holding public online events, investigating Privacy: The Foundation of Trust.

Some of the Debtfix Crew are old enough to remember taking a few coins along to school and handing them over with our bank book and a deposit slip to slowly build up a wee nest egg. We learnt about saving for a rainy day, earning interest on our meagre bank balance and maybe we got into the culture of New Zealand’s banking system.

However, no one talked to us about debt.

Recently, wild weather hit many parts of New Zealand letting us know winter is on the way and the Debtfix Crew thought it was time to get planning to reduce the risk of expensive disasters.

When your neighbourhood is flooding or the power goes off for a couple of days, the last thing you need to worry about is how to pay for takeaways to feed the family.

The Crew likes to ensure people have contingency money in their budgets for the unexpected and there has been a lot of unexpected during the last couple of years.

You’ve taken a quick loan to buy a new car, to cover the cost of a trip overseas, or even to consolidate your other loans and the finance company asks, “Would you like insurance with that?”

The add-on purchase may not have crossed your mind but when you think about it, the extra security of an insurance that covers debt repayments may sound like a good idea.

The person selling you the loan may imply it is compulsory to buy insurance but what are your rights and what are their obligations?

Currently the New Zealand media is obsessed with the Tokyo Olympic Games and whether you are into it or not, it is one of the rare occasions that less popular sports have their moment in the spotlight.

Talking about money and debt remains difficult for most New Zealanders and the Debtfix Crew wants to see this changed.