Under Section 22.2BA of the Tax Administration Act (TAA) and Section 75.3BA of the Goods and Services Tax Act (the GST Act), taxpayers in New Zealand are legally required to retain business and GST records within the country, whether in physical or electronic form. However, the Commissioner of Inland Revenue (CIR) may, under Section 22.8 of the TAA and Section 75.6 of the GST Act, exercise discretion to authorise offshore storage of such records. According to Revenue Alert 10/02, the CIR maintains that compliance with statutory record-keeping obligations necessitates the physical storage of primary business records in data centres located within New Zealand. Consequently, taxpayers using cloud computing services must ensure that their primary records are stored domestically, although the use of offshore cloud services for backup purposes is permissible, provided the primary records remain in New Zealand.

Section 189 of the Companies Act stipulates that companies must retain the following records at their registered office in New Zealand: the company’s constitution; resolutions and minutes of meetings of directors and shareholders; all written communications to shareholders and any share certificates issued; the register of directors; the register of directors’ interests; directors’ certificates; the share register; and the company’s financial statements together with its tax and accounting records.

The new Privacy Act 2020, which entered into force in December 2020, creates a conditional flow regime. Information Privacy Principle 12 in Section 22 of the Act governs cross-border data transfer. A business or organisation may only disclose personal information to another organisation outside New Zealand if the receiving organisation:
- is subject to the Privacy Act because they do business in New Zealand;
- is subject to privacy laws that provide comparable safeguards to the Privacy Act - or they agree to protect the information in such a way (e.g., by using model contract clauses), or
- is covered by a binding scheme or is subject to the privacy laws of a country prescribed by the New Zealand Government.
If none of these conditions is satisfied, a business may only make a cross-border disclosure with the permission of the data subject.
This regime does not apply to an overseas organisation that holds or processes on the business's behalf (e.g., cloud service providers).
Still, despite the IPP 12, a business may make a cross-border disclosure in urgent circumstances where it is necessary to maintain public health or safety or for the maintenance of the law.
This regime does not affect or limit other New Zealand law that regulates the availability of personal information (Section 24).

New Zealand has joined several agreements with binding commitments to open transfers of data across borders. These include: the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP, Art. 14.11), the Protocol to Amend the Agreement between Singapore and New Zealand on a Closer Economic Partnership (Art. 9.10), the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement Between Singapore, Chile and New Zealand (DEPA, Art. 4.3), the Free Trade Agreement between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and New Zealand [Art.15.4(2)], the EU-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement (Chapter 12, Art. 12.4), and the Protocol to the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement (Art. 5)

The Privacy Act 2020 provides a comprehensive data protection regime in New Zealand. It repeals and replaces the Privacy Act 1993 and contains 13 Information Privacy Principles (IPP) that govern the use of personal information in the country. The Act requires agencies to appoint at least one privacy officer, report data breaches that cause or are likely to cause serious harm, and provide data subjects with both the right to access and the right to request correction of their personal information. In addition, the new IPP 12 provides that an organisation or business may disclose personal information to an agency outside New Zealand only if the receiving agency is subject to safeguards similar to those in the Act. Also, the Act introduces new criminal penalties, punishable with fines of up to NZD 10,000 (approx. USD 6,000) and allows the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of New Zealand to issue compliance notices and enforceable access directions.

The Privacy Act 2020 provides that "[a]n agency must appoint as privacy officers for the agency one or more individuals" (Section 201).

Trade secrets are not protected under a dedicated statutory civil regime in New Zealand, but they may be protected through contractual arrangements and common law actions for breach of confidence. Under Section 230 of the Crimes Act 1961, the misappropriation of a trade secret, with intent to obtain a financial or economic advantage or to cause loss to another person, constitutes a criminal offence punishable by up to five years’ imprisonment. In addition, Section 249 criminalises accessing a computer system for a dishonest purpose to obtain property, which may apply to digital files and is punishable by up to seven years’ imprisonment.
Confidential commercial information held by public authorities may also be protected from disclosure under the Official Information Act 1982, including where disclosure would reveal trade secrets or prejudice commercial interests.

It is reported that New Zealand imposes passive infrastructure-sharing obligations to support the delivery of telecommunications services to end users.

The New Zealand Government has retained ownership interests in certain telecommunications companies since at least 2004 through Kordia’s predecessor, Transmission Holdings Limited. Kordia Group Limited, under its current name, has been listed as a state-owned enterprise since 22 March 2007, when it replaced Transmission Holdings Limited in the relevant state-owned enterprise schedule.
Kordia provides a range of services, including the transmission and linking of telecommunications and broadcasting signals, the design, construction, operation, and maintenance of transmission networks, as well as cybersecurity, cloud, connectivity, broadcast, and maritime safety services.

New Zealand is a signatory of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Information Technology Agreement (ITA) of 1996 and its 2015 expansion (ITA II).

In March 2023, New Zealand's Parliamentary Service announced a ban on TikTok across all devices connected to the parliamentary network, citing cybersecurity concerns. The decision followed internal analysis and consultations with both domestic and international partners, which concluded that the app posed security risks within the parliamentary environment. The ban affects around 500 individuals, though exemptions may be granted for those who require the app for official functions. This measure aligns New Zealand with other Western nations that have implemented similar restrictions on TikTok due to data security concerns.

Under Rule 8 of the Government Procurement Rules (5th edition), public agencies evaluating goods and services procurements above NZD 100,000 (approx. USD 59,000) must reserve at least 10% of the evaluation score for benefits to the New Zealand economy. These benefits may include using New Zealand workers, businesses, SMEs, regional suppliers, subcontractors, or supply chains, or contributing to the development of New Zealand industry capability. For procurements below this threshold, agencies are generally expected to award contracts to capable New Zealand businesses, unless there is a good reason not to. For this rule, New Zealand businesses include Australian businesses.

New Zealand is a party to the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA), and its commitments also cover the services sectors considered most important for digital trade, namely telecommunication services (CPC 752), telecommunication-related services (CPC 754), and computer and related services (CPC 84).

There are no foreign ownership limitations in sectors relevant to digital trade.