IR-01-23-25410
21 August 2023
Mason Helm
[FYI request #23731 email]
Dear Mason
Request for Information
Thank you for your Official Information Act 1982 (OIA) request dated 7 August 2023, in
which you asked for further information regarding Police’s auditing of its access to
Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) systems.
In your request you asked Police to:
Please provide further clarity and information on what is meant by the Police's
statement that all live ANPR alerts have been audited.
Including specifical y whether "audit" includes confirming that a live alert was
lawfully authorised (under a tracking warrant / warrant exemption).
You provided the following context:
On 10/06/2023 I requested information on the number of active detection ANPR
alerts (Live alerts / 'tracking function') conducted under the different statutory
authorities that are available to the Police for those types of searches: tracking
warrants, warrantless tracking warrant uses, and [questionably] confined Privacy
Act exemptions (https://fyi.org.nz/request/23086-anpr-audit-results-auror-vgrid-
surveil ance-device-warrants-privacy-act-production-orders-re-request-2).
The Police could not provide me with that information despite stating that "every
... use of [the] ANPR tracking functionality was audited, from ... 2018 ... [to]
October 2022" in the audit summary completed December 2022
(https://www.police.govt.nz/sites/default/files/publications/police-use-anpr-
platforms-audit-report.pdf at 2).
I note that the purpose of the audit was "to verify that authorised Police staff are
accessing externally provided ANPR data in appropriate ways"
(https://www.police.govt.nz/sites/default/files/publications/anpr-faqs.pdf) but your
previous response suggests that the authority data may not have been audited.
We confirm every Police use of ANPR active detection (“tracking”) functionality was
audited in our most recent audit between the dates specified. Our auditing processes
included several techniques to examine the data. The methodology used is provided in
the previously published audit report which you have referred to. As identified in the audit
findings of the report, there were a total of four cases which were assessed as requiring
specific follow up to ascertain their appropriateness of use.
Police National Headquarters 180 Molesworth Street. PO Box 3017, Wellington 6140, New Zealand.
Telephone: 04 474 9499. 04 498 7400. www.police.govt.nz
I hope you find this clarification helpful. You may also ask the Ombudsman to review my
decision if you are not satisfied with Police’s response to your request. Information about
how to make a complaint is available at:
www.ombudsman.parliament.nz.
Yours sincerely
Carla Gilmore
Manager: New Technology Assurance
