Harmful Digital Communications Act - Police Manual chapters, Policies or Guidelines for prosecutions under this act
Alice Haden made this Official Information request to New Zealand Police
The request was successful.
From: Alice Haden
Dear New Zealand Police,
Could you please provide me under the Official Information Act with the following material in electronic form to the email address in this communication:
Police Manual chapters or any other policies or guidelines for prosecutions and investigations under the following categories:
(1) Harmful Digital Communications Act Offences under section 22
(2) Harassment Act
(3) "Threats/Intimidation" police complaint category - presumably including Summary Offences such as disorderly conduct and threats/intimidation
These should be provided as email attachments in a searchable format (i.e. original PDFs, rather than scanned prints).
If any clarification or assistance is required, please do not hesitate to contact me.
I am a New Zealand citizen residing in New Zealand.
Please communicate only via email to this email address unless I advise otherwise.
Yours faithfully,
Alice Karvelas
New Zealand Police
Dear Ms Karvelas
I acknowledge receipt of your Official Information Act (OIA) request
below, received by NZ Police on 6 May 2020.
As you are aware, Police are needing to redeploy staff in the face of
unprecedented circumstances as we respond to Covid-19. This will have a
severe impact on our ability to respond to requests for information under
the OIA in a timely fashion. We will do our best to respond to you as soon
as we can.
Thank you for your understanding.
Kind regards
Ministerial Services
PNHQ
-----"Alice Haden" <[FOI #12792 email]> wrote:
-----
To: "OIA/LGOIMA requests at New Zealand Police"
<[New Zealand Police request email]>
From: "Alice Haden" <[FOI #12792 email]>
Date: 06/05/2020 06:50PM
Subject: Official Information request - Harmful Digital Communications Act
- Police Manual chapters, Policies or Guidelines for prosecutions under
this act
Dear New Zealand Police,
Could you please provide me under the Official Information Act with the
following material in electronic form to the email address in this
communication:
Police Manual chapters or any other policies or guidelines for
prosecutions and investigations under the following categories:
(1) Harmful Digital Communications Act Offences under section 22
(2) Harassment Act
(3) "Threats/Intimidation" police complaint category - presumably
including Summary Offences such as disorderly conduct and
threats/intimidation
These should be provided as email attachments in a searchable format (i.e.
original PDFs, rather than scanned prints).
If any clarification or assistance is required, please do not hesitate to
contact me.
I am a New Zealand citizen residing in New Zealand.
Please communicate only via email to this email address unless I advise
otherwise.
Yours faithfully,
Alice Karvelas
-------------------------------------------------------------------
This is an Official Information request made via the FYI website.
Please use this email address for all replies to this request:
[FOI #12792 email]
Is [New Zealand Police request email] the wrong address for Official
Information requests to New Zealand Police? If so, please contact us using
this form:
[1]https://fyi.org.nz/change_request/new?bo...
Disclaimer: This message and any reply that you make will be published on
the internet. Our privacy and copyright policies:
[2]https://fyi.org.nz/help/officers
If you find this service useful as an Official Information officer, please
ask your web manager to link to us from your organisation's OIA or LGOIMA
page.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
===============================================================
WARNING
The information contained in this email message is intended for the
addressee only and may contain privileged information. It may also be
subject to the provisions of section 50 of the Policing Act 2008, which
creates an offence to have unlawful possession of Police property. If you
are not the intended recipient of this message or have received this
message in error, you must not peruse, use, distribute or copy this
message or any of its contents.
Also note, the views expressed in this message may not necessarily reflect
those of the New Zealand Police. If you have received this message in
error, please email or telephone the sender immediately
References
Visible links
1. https://fyi.org.nz/change_request/new?bo...
2. https://fyi.org.nz/help/officers
hide quoted sections
New Zealand Police
Tena koe Alice
Please see attached the reply to your OIA received 06/05/2020. Please
accept our apologies for the delay.
Kind regards
Rikki
Ministerial services
PNHQ
===============================================================
WARNING
The information contained in this email message is intended for the
addressee only and may contain privileged information. It may also be
subject to the provisions of section 50 of the Policing Act 2008, which
creates an offence to have unlawful possession of Police property. If you
are not the intended recipient of this message or have received this
message in error, you must not peruse, use, distribute or copy this
message or any of its contents.
Also note, the views expressed in this message may not necessarily reflect
those of the New Zealand Police. If you have received this message in
error, please email or telephone the sender immediately
Things to do with this request
- Add an annotation (to help the requester or others)
- Download a zip file of all correspondence
Offensive? Unsuitable?
Requests for personal information and vexatious requests are not considered valid requests for Official Information (read more).
If you believe this request is not suitable, you can report it for attention by the site administrators
Report this request
Mark Hanna left an annotation ()
It's incredibly disappointing that NZ Police have ignored your clear request that the information you asked for should be released in a searchable format. I see that they also have not provided a good reason for their failure to do this, which is a legal required under section 16(3)(a) of the OIA.
As far as I can tell, no information has been withheld in the documents they have released. I do not expect Police have a good reason for failing to provide this information in an accessible format.
Of course, that's all on top of their unacceptable and unlawful delay of 8 working days in responding to your request.
I recommend you lay a complaint with the Office of the Ombudsman, though you may be able to more quickly get the information in the format you had requested it by raising the issue directly with NZ Police.
When I have written to the Minister for Disability Issues in the past regarding issues such as this, she told me:
"Providing OIA responses in accessible formats should be standard practice as part of an open and transparent government."
Please feel free to quote this to NZ Police or in a complaint to the Ombudsman. The source for the quote can be found here: https://honestuniverse.com/2018/01/31/oi...
Link to this