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IR-01-25-29862
9 December 2025
Dale
[FYI request #32013 email]
Tēnā koe Dale
Request for information
Thank you for your Official Information Act 1982 (OIA) request dated 14 August 2025.
You wrote:
1. Confirmation of whether Police has ever, for any purpose, directly or indirectly
purchased, licensed, or otherwise acquired data about people from private data
brokers including where that data was described, presented, or claimed to be
anonymous, pseudonymous, de-identified, or similar.
For this request, “private data broker” means a commercial entity whose business
is to collect, aggregate, analyse, and sell or license data about individuals
obtained from multiple sources (e.g., public records, online activity, consumer
transactions, mobile apps, sensors, or other datasets), whether or not the data is
described as anonymised, pseudonymised, de-identified, or otherwise stripped of
direct identifiers.
This may include commercial data aggregators providing bulk datasets on
populations or large groups, such as mobility/location data, consumer purchase
histories, marketing profiles, identity verification databases, or risk-scoring
datasets.
It does not include any lawful, case-specific requests for information from
telecommunications companies, banks, or other service providers relating to an
already identified person(s) (e.g., warrants, production orders, or equivalent legal
processes).
Nor does it include data sharing between government agencies under existing
statutory powers or MOUs, publicly available datasets accessed without a
commercial agreement, or data col ected directly by Police from individuals
through its own services or functions.
Thank you for your patience while we were preparing this response for you.
Police rely on information from a wide range of sources to detect, investigate, and prevent
crime and harm. Police use services such as Infolog
1 to provide critical investigative
details and help generate lines of enquiry that support these efforts. Police however is
withholding the names of other tools to protect the integrity of investigative methods. This
ensures that individuals seeking to evade detection cannot exploit this knowledge to
1
technology-capabilities-list-oct-2025.pdf
Police National Headquarters 180 Molesworth Street. PO Box 3017, Wellington 6140, New Zealand.
Telephone: 04 474 9499. Fax: 04 498 7400. www.police.govt.nz
undermine Police work, therefore, this information is withheld under section 6(c) of the
OIA as the making available of the information would be likely to prejudice the
maintenance of the law, including the prevention, investigation and detection of offences
and the right to a fair trial.
2.
For any such instances, please provide:
The name of the data broker or supplying entity • The date or time period of
acquisition • A brief description of the type or category of data obtained • The
claimed level of anonymisation or pseudonymisation • The purpose for which the
data was acquired • Whether the data was retained, deleted, or shared with any
other party (and, if shared, with whom)
Please see my response above.
3. If Police has a policy, guideline, standard, or internal process relating to the
acquisition or use of anonymous or pseudonymous data from private data
brokers, please provide a copy.
This part of your request is refused under section 18(g) of the OIA that the information
requested is not held by Police and there are no reasonable grounds to believe it is held
by, or more closely connected with the functions of, another Minister or agency.
Note that any data or information related to individuals or mass data sets about
individuals, depersonalised or not, must be obtained:
•
For a lawful purpose
•
considered under the provisions of the Privacy Act 2020, and,
•
considered on a case-by-case basis and would likely require an internal Privacy
Impact assessment.
4. If Police has undertaken any assessment or analysis regarding the privacy,
security, or ethical implications of acquiring anonymous or pseudonymous data
from private data brokers, please provide a copy of that assessment or analysis.
This part of your request is refused under section 18(e) of the OIA as the document
alleged to contain the information requested does not exist. and there are no reasonable
grounds to believe it is held by, or more closely connected with the functions of, another
Minister or agency.
You have the right to seek an investigation and review by the Ombudsman of this
decision. Information about how to make a complaint is available at
www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or freephone 0800 802 602.
Please note that as part of its commitment to openness and transparency, Police
proactively releases some information and documents that may be of interest to the
public. An anonymised version of this response may be publicly released on the New
Zealand Police website.
Ngā mihi
Ashley Johnston
Director (Acting), National Intel igence Centre
Police National Headquarters
