A woman's email to the help desk of Telecom New Zealand was rejected by a computer system because her name was Gay and "inappropriate for business-like communication".

Gay Hamilton, from the northern South Island town of Nelson, said while she was actually gay, she was concerned that the country's biggest public company was spending its time and resources on trifling issues, the Herald on Sunday reported.

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Telecom spokesman Lenska Papich said the response was triggered by the company's internal email monitoring system, which prevented "misuse of email technologies in the workplace and act as a deterrent to harassment".

"Our systems internally detect a number of words, including both the words gay and heterosexual, that could be deemed as inappropriate for use at work," she said.