IN-CONFIDENCE

28 September 2023

Ashley
[FYI request #24010 email]

Tēnā koe Ashley

On  31 August 2023,  you  requested, via the FYI website, under the Official
Information Act 1982 (the Act) the following information from the Ministry of
Social Development (the Ministry):
1.  Copies of the Ministry's policies, procedures, and processes regarding
the use of teams by staff members, including requests to access teams
chats by managers.
2.  How many requests for access to staff members' teams chats have
been made by managers and/or people leaders in the past 12 months?
What justifications or reasons are required when lodging a request to
access staff members' teams records? Are the staff members advised
when these requests are lodged as part of the process? Is privacy a
factor considered when deciding whether to grant access?
The Ministry has interpreted your request to be for information regarding
appropriate use of Microsoft Teams by staff, rather than operational or ‘how-
to’ guidance. Please contact the Ministry is this was not the intent of your
request.
I will now respond to your questions in turn.
1.  Copies of the Ministry's policies, procedures, and processes regarding
the use of teams by staff members, including requests to access teams
chats by managers.
Our use of Microsoft Teams by Ministry staff is covered by both the Ministry’s
overarching policies for information and technology by using Microsoft Teams
specific guidance and processes.
Please find attached the following documents:
•  Information Governance Policy, reviewed October 2022.
•  Recording Standard, approved 13 April 2022.
•  MSD Survey Standard, approved 15 June 2022.

IN-CONFIDENCE

•  SharePoint page - Personal information use scenarios.
•  SharePoint page - Where does information belong?
•  SharePoint page - Microsoft Teams Terms of Use.
Two additional documents were also identified to contain information partially
in scope of your request. To expedite a response to you, the relevant sections
of these documents have been provided as excerpts in accordance with section
16(1)(e) of the Act. You will find the excerpted sections of the following
documents in the Appendix:
•  Ministry of Social Development Information Security Policies –
Acceptable Use of Technology Policy, approved 28 March 2017.
•  SharePoint page - Recording Meetings with Microsoft Teams (National
Office and Whaikaha).
You will note some additional guidelines are referenced in the Acceptable Use
of Technology Policy. However, the Ministry does not believe these are in scope
of your request and as such, we have not included copies of them in this
response.
2.  How many requests for access to staff members' teams chats have
been made by managers and/or people leaders in the past 12 months?
What justifications or reasons are required when lodging a request to
access staff members' teams records? Are the staff members advised
when these requests are lodged as part of the process? Is privacy a
factor considered when deciding whether to grant access?
The Ministry’s Internal Integrity team have not received any requests by
managers to access staff member’s Teams chats in the past 12 months.
In order to make a request to Internal Integrity to access Teams chat data,
there must be cause for suspicion of inappropriate behaviour by the staff
member.  For example, this could include suspicion of fraud, corruption,
misappropriation or dishonesty. Staff are not advised of any requests that are
made unless the investigation results in detection of serious misconduct, in
which case the staff member, their manager and Human Resources will be
advised of the outcome.
Additionally, requests to access Teams chats can be made as part of OIA or
Privacy Act requests. Any information of this nature will be managed securely
by the appropriate team and assessed under the grounds of the respective Act.
These requests may be made to other business units at the Ministry (such as
the Windows and Integration team), and requests of this nature are not
centrally recorded. In order to find the total number of Ministry-wide requests
for Teams chats made by managers or people leaders in the last 12 months,
the Ministry would need to divert personnel from their core duties and allocate
extra time to manually review a significant number of files.
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IN-CONFIDENCE

The diversion of these resources would impair the Ministry’s ability to continue
standard operations and would be an inefficient use of the Ministry’s resources.
As such, your request is refused under section 18(f) of the Act as it requires
substantial collation. The greater public interest is in the effective and efficient
administration of the public service.
I have considered whether the Ministry would be able to respond to your
requests given extra time, or the ability to charge for the information
requested. I have concluded that, in either case, the Ministry’s ability to
undertake its work would still be prejudiced.
The principles and purposes of the Official Information Act 1982 under which
you made your request are:
•  to create greater openness and transparency about the plans, work and
activities of the Government,
•  to  increase  the  ability  of  the  public  to  participate  in  the  making  and
administration of our laws and policies and
•  to lead to greater accountability in the conduct of public affairs.
This Ministry fully supports those principles and purposes. The Ministry
therefore  intends  to  make  the  information  contained  in  this  letter  and  any
attached documents available to the wider public. The Ministry will do this by
publishing this letter and attachments on the Ministry’s website. Your personal
details will be deleted, and the Ministry will not publish any information that
would identify you as the person who requested the information.
If you wish to discuss this response with us, please feel free to contact
[MSD request email].
If you are not satisfied with this response  regarding the Ministry’s use of
Teams,  you  have  the  right  to  seek  an  investigation  and  review by the
Ombudsman.  Information  about  how  to  make  a  complaint  is  available  at
www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or 0800 802 602.
Ngā mihi nui
Fiona McElwee
Director
Information Foundations
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Document Outline