Warrant requirement to use the Home Location Registry (HLR) for Polling Data
M B made this Official Information request to New Zealand Police
The request was partially successful.
From: M B
Dear New Zealand Police,
In the Telecommunication investigations Manual, a Polling Information Request, through a Comms Centre Polling request, is stated to be sent to the Network Operations Centre (NOC) of the three telcos.
It is described as relating to a "single" polling request. "A query is done on the Home
Location Register (HLR) which is a record of only the last tower a phone polled off. ... There are no historic records and it is constantly overwritten ... . It is not possible to continually ‘track’ from this system as it requires constant manual queries."
1. Please provide the full Telecommunication investigations chapter.
2. Do the New Zealand Police have the access to conduct "manual queries" themselves, or are these relayed to the Telco providers.
3. Is it practically possible to conduct several consecutive manual queries or are there safeguards in place to prevent this? You state that it is not possible to "continually track", but is there anything preventing a bombardment of manual queries as suggested?
4. What is the Warrant / Production Order requirement for single polling requests?
Yours faithfully,
Mason.
From: Ministerial Services
New Zealand Police
Tēnā koe MB
I acknowledge receipt of your Official Information Act 1982 (OIA) request below, received by Police on 19 September 2022.
Your reference number is IR-01-22-28849.
You can expect a response to your request on or before 17 October 2022 unless an extension is needed.
Ngā mihi
Catherine
Ministerial Services
Police National Headquarters
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From: M B
Dear Ministerial Services,
For questions 2-4, please provide all manuals, guidance materials, or otherwise held up to date information held by the police.
Yours sincerely,
Mason.
From: M B
Dear Ministerial Services,
Is this information ready?
Yours sincerely,
Mason.
From: Ministerial Services
New Zealand Police
Mōrena Mason
I can confirm that your request has been drafted and is currently progressing through our internal consultation process. Although I am unable to confirm a release date at this stage, in normal circumstances this process can take up to eight working days.
Please accept our apologies for the delay in providing you with a response to your query. We are endeavouring to provide this to you as soon as possible.
Ngā mihi
Julián (he/him)
Ministerial Services Advisor
NZ Police National Headquarters Wellington
If you’re wondering about the use of pronouns in email signatures, you can find more information here about how sharing pronouns can help create a sense of belonging and respect.
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From: M B
Dear Ministerial Services,
Please provide a response time.
Yours sincerely,
Mason.
From: Ministerial Services
New Zealand Police
Tēnā koe Mason
Please find attached the response to your Official Information Act
request, received by New Zealand Police on 20 September 2022.
Ngā mihi
Sarah
Ministerial Services | Police National Headquarters
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Mark Hanna left an annotation ()
I hope you'll complain about the large amounts of information withheld under section 6(c) of the OIA? If the Ombudsman is able to review them, they may find that the redaction of some of this information was not justified.
It's also interesting to note that the document released to you was apparently extracted from NZ Police's systems on 1 February 2022. When this document was released under the OIA to Carol Rene on 30 May 2022, it also had the same printed date.
Their request was made on 1 May 2022, so I'm not sure if there may have been another request earlier in 2022 that prompted NZ Police to extract this document from their systems and make decisions about what information to withhold.
https://fyi.org.nz/request/19246-nz-poli...
Either way, it seems clear that NZ Police did not make these decisions regarding which parts of this document to withhold in response to your request. You may want to refer to this if you decide to complain to the Ombudsman about the unlawful delay in Police sending you their decision on your request, which was due no later than 18 October.
I also see NZ Police said, in their response to you, that they received your request on 20 September. This is incorrect, they received your request on 19 September. The Ombudsman's guideline on requests made online is clear:
"Where an agency has designated a particular information system (like an email address, Twitter account, or Facebook page) for the purpose of receiving electronic communications, those communications will be taken to be received at the time they enter the information system, not when they come to the agency’s attention."
https://www.ombudsman.parliament.nz/reso...
Link to this