4 February 2022
File number: IR-01-21-36166
Carol Rene
[FYI request #17866 email]
Official Information Act Request
Dear Carol
Thank you for email dated 7 December 2021 in which you requested information about the Police
use of Polling data.
You requested:
If a Police officer refers to the act of 'pol ing' the smartphone of an individual, using the word
‘pol ’, is it likely that they are referring to some process by which police can find the physical
location of that smartphone? If so, I request copies of internal Police policy on this process. If
not, I request other acts that this term could refer to.
‘Polling’ is a term used in the Telecommunications industry and subsequently adopted by law
enforcement. The term ‘polling’ refers to the action of identifying the point at which a
telecommunication enters the telecommunication network (most often a cell phone tower). Police
will at times request information from Telecommunications Companies that reveals which cell
phone tower a specific mobile cellular device has connected to.
This action of polling does not identify the actual physical location of the phone. However, it does
indicate the location of the cell phone tower that a particular mobile phone was connected to at a
given date and time.
Any pol ing requests made by Police to Telecommunications Companies must be lawful, reasonable
and proportionate. The Search and Surveillance Act 2012, Privacy Act 2020 and the
Telecommunication Information Privacy Code 2020 all govern when and how Police may request this
information from the Telecommunications Companies.
New Zealand Police has an internal document known as the Telecommunication Investigations
Manual. This document contains a chapter entitled “Acronyms and Terminology.” Within this
chapter, there is a definition of the term ‘polling,’ which is relevant to your request. I have copied
that extract below, as fol ows:
Polling - Live information recording connection between a device and a cel site. Pol ing
information is not stored –
live interception only. Pol ing information is created when there
is call, text or internet activity on the device. Pol ing information may also be created
periodically or when the device moves from one location to another. (Page 8, New Zealand
Police Telecommunication Investigations Manual).
Additionally, this same manual contains a further reference to polling which is relevant to your
request. The chapter entitled “Comms Centre Pol ing Request” contains the fol owing extract:
Comms Centre Pol ing request - this is sent to the Network Operations Centre (NOC) of the
three telcos. It relates to a single pol ing request. A query is done on the Home Location
Register (HLR) which is a record of only the last tower a phone pol ed off. The HLR is what
assists the telco to route calls. There are no historic records and it is constantly overwritten
with only the latest value. It is not possible to continually ‘track’ from this system as it
requires constant manual queries. The NOCs are not set up to provide ongoing tracking
information. (Page 22, NZ Police Telecommunication Investigations Manual).
Furthermore, you may be interested in viewing the Code of Practice issued by the Privacy
Commissioner under section 32 of the Privacy Act 2020, which specifically relates to the
Telecommunications industry and is relevant to your request. Information relating to this Code can
be found on the Privacy Commissioners Website.
https://privacy.org.nz/privacy-act-2020/codes-of-
practice/tipc2020
I trust this information satisfies your request.
Yours sincerely.
David Lankshear
Detective Senior Sergeant
New Zealand Police National Headquarters
Document Outline
