The New Zealand Herald reports on plans to establish uniform ID numbers for businesses to reduce compliance and reporting costs to various government agencies. When it comes to assigning numbers to sole traders, however, problems ensue because of a Privacy Act provision that says "a unique identifier assigned to an individual by one agency cannot be used by another," the report states. Privacy Commissioner Marie Shroff says the personal information aspects are being considered and that "Privacy isn't a roadblock to setting up a single business number for sole traders. There's a range of ways to get it right and we've been discussing these with MED and other interested agencies."
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