Hon Peter Dunne
Minister of Internal Affairs
21 January 2015 Media Statement
Access to Births, Deaths, Marriages records reviewed
The Minister of Internal Affairs Hon Peter Dunne today announced a review of access to Births, Deaths and Marriages
(BDM) records.
The existing BDM access rules came into force on 25 January 2009 with the requirement they would be reviewed after five
years. Births, Deaths and Marriage records are used by many New Zealanders, to help establish their identity, to trace
their family history and for many other reasons.
“The Government wants to test whether current rules on how people access government held birth, death, marriage, civil
union and name change records are adequate and effective. So the Department of Internal Affairs is reviewing the rules
and wants to hear what users of the service think of their usefulness and whether they are still applicable.
“The review will not look at information sharing and/or data matching between government agencies or access to
specifically protected information”, says Mr Dunne.
Interested members of the public and institutional users of the service are encouraged to have their say and make a
submission via the Department of Internal Affairs website (www.dia.govt.nz/bdmreview), email or by post.
The final date for lodging submissions for this review is on 25 February 2015.