Tēnā koe Cody,
I acknowledge receipt of your Official Information Act 1982 request below, received by Police on 5 June 2023.

Your reference number is IR-01-23-17541.

You can expect a response to your request on or before 3 July 2023 unless an extension is needed.

Ngā mihi
Courtenay
Ministerial Services
Police National Headquarters

-----Original Message-----
From: Cody C <[FOI #23009 email]>
Sent: Monday, 5 June 2023 10:41 AM
To: Ministerial Services <[email address]>
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Official Information request - Admissibility of evidence from member of the public

CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe.

Dear New Zealand Police,

I am looking to understand under what circumstances, broadly speaking, would Police ordinarily accept / decline admissibility of evidence from member of the public, particularly where they are using their own camera.

Any guidelines or similar would be appreciated, alongside any common examples that are both acceptable or unacceptable. e.g. using CCTV footage from a dairy in a ram raid might ordinarily be okay but footage recorded from another screen and then uploaded onto Facebook where someone recorded it on their smart phone might not.

I have some more specific questions I am looking to answer to help refine this request:

1) Could Police - in theory - accept evidence of a stationery traffic offence from a member of the publics smartphone camera, e.g. a photograph of a vehicle parking on a footpath? What challenges might this present? Noting that Local Government tends not to accept this method, for their own reasons, instead requiring the public to call in every offence for a parking compliance officer to attend.

2) How does this differ for "dashcam" footage, e.g. a video provided to Police of a vehicle crossing the centre line?

3) How does this differ in practise from a *555 call for a non-stationery (moving) traffic offence observed by a member of the public, e.g. danagerous driving? Noting that there is typically no tangible evidence in this case, other than the persons own word.

Yours faithfully,

Cody C

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Kia ora Cody

 

Please find a response attached.

 

Ngā mihi

 

Sophie

New Zealand Police

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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