Dear Ms Harris

On behalf of the New Zealand Customs Service (Customs) I acknowledge
receipt of your request for information under the Official Information Act
1982 (the OIA).

Customs will respond to your request as soon as reasonably practicable,
and in any case not later than 20 working days after the day on which your
request was received.

Please be advised that as your request is a request for official
information there may be a charge, as set out in section 15 of the OIA. 
This would be a charge of $38 per half hour (including GST) after the
first hour of staff time spent actioning your request.

Yours sincerely

Chief Customs Officer – Procedures and Support

show quoted sections

Dear Ms Harris

Further to my previous message, the New Zealand Customs Service (Customs)
has assessed the work that would be involved in providing the information
you have requested.

As you have previously been advised, where Customs has undertaken a
baggage search, and that search included the search of a computer or
electronic device, a report is created in Customs’ database recording that
search.  The report includes noting whether or not items were detained and
why.  Similar reports are created to record other situations where items
are detained, for instance where a consignment of household goods is
examined on arrival in New Zealand.

The format for these reports varies, so in order to provide the
statistical breakdowns you have requested a Customs officer would need to
re-read the whole of the report narrative of every individual report about
the 295 computers and 548 electronic devices detained in 2013, and record
data relevant to your questions.  We estimate this may take between 12 and
15 hours of staff time. 

Customs considers this is a substantial amount of time to spend on
collating data, and invites you to refine the first and third bullet
points of your request in order to reduce the time needed to compile data
for the response.  The overall scheme of the Official Information Act 1982
recognises that there is a balance between promoting readier access to
official information and the administrative cost of that access in time,
labour and materials.  In its current form your request will be refused
pursuant to section 18(f) of the Official Information Act 1982, which
allows a request to be refused if the information requested cannot be made
available without substantial collation or research.

With regard to the second bullet point of your request, please note that
Customs can only conduct searches within the scope of the Customs and
Excise Act 1996 and other border-related legislation such as the Films,
Videos, and Publications Classification Act 1993 (in relation to
objectionable material) or the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975 (in relation to
illicit drugs).  This activity does not extend to conducting searches on
behalf of the other agencies you have mentioned in your request.

Yours sincerely

Chief Customs Officer – Procedures and Support

show quoted sections

Dear Ms Harris

In my response of 12 March 2014 you were invited by Customs to refine some aspects of your 13 February 2014 request for information under the Official Information Act 1872 (the OIA) in order to reduce the time needed to compile data for the response.

In order to answer your refined request (dated 12 March 2014), the report narrative of every report about the 295 computers and 548 electronic devices detained in 2013 would have to be re-read and also edited by a Customs officer to make the appropriate redactions and annotations. This is likely to take considerably longer than simply recording data relevant to the questions in your original request. In addition, the reports would then have to be printed on OIA watermark paper and scanned in order be presented in the electronic format you have indicated is acceptable to you. Because of the large number of reports it is likely that the information would need to be broken up into a large number of separate scanned files which may need to be emailed separately, depending on their size.

Customs considered your original request should be refused pursuant to section 18(f) of the OIA, which allows a request to be refused if the information requested cannot be made available without substantial collation or research. The information you have asked for in your refined request would take a great deal more time to collate than the data to answer your original request. Therefore your refined request is also refused pursuant to section 18(f) of the OIA.

If you are dissatisfied with this response you have the right under section 28(3) of the Act, by way of complaint to the Office of the Ombudsman, to seek an investigation and review of this decision.

Yours sincerely
Chief Customs Officer – Procedures and Support

show quoted sections