A plan to reveal the number of times agencies such as the police request and receive personal data from a range of companies has been applauded by Trade Me.
The auction website and other companies that hand over information - often without a warrant or the knowledge of the customer - could now be asked to provide a record of requests to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner (OPC), which will publish a record.
Lawyers, privacy advocates and companies have concerns about the growth in government requests for company records and personal data.
Privacy Commissioner John Edwards said businesses increasingly hold a large amount of personal information that can be useful to the government's law enforcement and national security activities.
"Agencies such as the police, Inland Revenue, the Ministry of Social Development, and a host of others have powers to obtain information from corporations, about individuals, often without the knowledge of those involved," Mr Edwards said in a speech to an annual gathering of New Zealand's intelligence community.