Tēnā koe Harwood,

 

Thank you for your request for information.

 

We are handling your request under the Local Government Official
Information and Meetings Act 1987 (LGOIMA). We have forwarded it to the
appropriate Christchurch City Council staff, and we will provide a
response or update within 20 working days of the date we received your
request. If we are unable to respond to your request by then, we will
notify you of an extension of that timeframe.

 

If you have any queries, please feel free to contact me using the
reference 1496598. If any additional factors come to light which are
relevant to your request, please do not hesitate to contact me so that
these can be taken into account.

 

If you have not had a reply within 10 working days, please email
[1][Christchurch City Council request email]  

 

Nāku noa iti, nā

 

Jess Griffin
Official Information Advisor
Te Ratonga Ture me te Manapori - Legal & Democratic Services

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

 

 

This electronic email and any files transmitted with it are intended
solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed.
The views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender and
may not necessarily reflect the views of the Christchurch City Council.
If you are not the correct recipient of this email please advise the
sender and delete the email.

[2]Christchurch City Council logo

References

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2. Christchurch City Council logo
https://ccc.govt.nz/

Tçnâ koe Harwood,

 

On 31 October 2025, you requested the following information, under the
Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987 (LGOIMA):

 

Please provide information on how the council parking teams check if a
vehicle licence label has been maliciously altered.

Specifically, if a vehicle licence registration label shows as expired, do
the council staff take that as face value of what appears on the paper
label in front of them or do they check that against the NZTA database or
similar? and in any case of investigating a vehicle, (for example bad
parking, but shows current licence) do the council staff check the licence
label against the NZTA database or similar? to ensure the licence label is
correct?

Given that almost anything can be recreated by AI, do the council have a
policy regarding verifying licence labels? or do they just rely on what is
in front of their eyes and fine or not fine as such?

Has there been any meetings regarding this subject in the past 12 months?
if so please attach any minutes of said meetings.

 

Release of information

 

 1. Do parking compliance officers base registration off the visible paper
label or do they check against the NZTA database?

The Officers issue to what they physically see on the label.  They do not
have the ability to access the NZTA Motocheck database.

 

 2. Do the Council have a policy regarding verifying licence labels?

As stated above, the Officers issue to what they physically see on the
label. However, the Officers allow a 14-day grace period after a vehicle’s
registration expires before issuing an infringement notice. If they come
across a vehicle still within that grace period, they’ll leave a reminder
flyer on the vehicle to let the owner know their registration has expired
(see attached).

 

 3. Has there been any meetings regarding the potential use of AI to alter
licence labels in the past 12 months?

No

 

 4. If so, please provide minutes of the meetings.

Not applicable

 

You have the right to ask the Ombudsman to investigate and review our
decision. Complaints can be sent by email to
[1][email address].

 

Publication of responses to LGOIMA requests

Please note: our LGOIMA responses may be published on the Christchurch
City Council website a week after they have been responded to, with
requesters’ personal details withheld. If you have any concerns about
this, please contact the Official Information team on
[2][Christchurch City Council request email].

 

Nâku noa iti, nâ

 

Jess Griffin
Official Information Advisor
Te Ratonga Ture me te Manapori - Legal & Democratic Services

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

This electronic email and any files transmitted with it are intended
solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed.
The views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender and
may not necessarily reflect the views of the Christchurch City Council.
If you are not the correct recipient of this email please advise the
sender and delete the email.

[3]Christchurch City Council logo

References

Visible links
1. mailto:[email address]
2. mailto:[Christchurch City Council request email]
3. Christchurch City Council logo
https://ccc.govt.nz/

Tēnā koe Harwood,

 

Thank you for your follow up request for information.

 

We are handling your request under the Local Government Official
Information and Meetings Act 1987 (LGOIMA). We have forwarded it to the
appropriate Christchurch City Council staff, and we will provide a
response or update within 20 working days of the date we received your
request. If we are unable to respond to your request by then, we will
notify you of an extension of that timeframe.

 

If you have any queries, please feel free to contact me using the
reference 1510006. If any additional factors come to light which are
relevant to your request, please do not hesitate to contact me so that
these can be taken into account.

 

If you have not had a reply within 10 working days, please email
[1][Christchurch City Council request email]  

 

Nāku noa iti, nā

 

Jess Griffin
Official Information Advisor
Te Ratonga Ture me te Manapori - Legal & Democratic Services

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

This electronic email and any files transmitted with it are intended
solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed.
The views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender and
may not necessarily reflect the views of the Christchurch City Council.
If you are not the correct recipient of this email please advise the
sender and delete the email.

[2]Christchurch City Council logo

References

Visible links
1. mailto:[Christchurch City Council request email]
2. Christchurch City Council logo
https://ccc.govt.nz/

Tēnā koe Harwood,

 

On 20 November 2025, you requested the following information, under the
Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987 (LGOIMA):

 

Thank you for the response.

I am surprised that the council do not check information against some
database as it is very easy to recreate anything printed these days.

I further ask:

1. What is preventing the parking officers from accessing the "NZTA
Motocheck database" is this prohibited by NZTA or have the council not
equipped itself for this option?

2. Does anyone in the Council have access to the "NZTA Motocheck
database"?

3. Does the council keep statistics on the number of infringements against
vehicles where the infringement has been incorrectly issued for licence
and wof? i.e vehicle presents as expired but live records show it isn't?
if so, please provide these for the last 24 months.

4. Have the council (be that councillor, community board, executive,
management or anyone employed) expressed any issue around sending
infringements to persons based on what they see on paper, when live
records present otherwise? within the past 24 months? if so please provide
copies.

5. Have the council (be that councillor, community board, executive,
management or anyone employed) discussed (in the last 24 months) ignoring
valid live data when what on paper In front of them presents otherwise in
order to increase revenue? and does that council have a policy on this? if
so, please provide information on both.

 

Release of information

 

 1. What is preventing the parking officers from accessing the "NZTA
Motocheck database" is this prohibited by NZTA or have the council not
equipped itself for this option? Does anyone in the Council have
access to the "NZTA Motocheck database"?

 

As advised previously, staff issue infringement notices based on what is
physically checked on the paper labels. Christchurch City Council staff do
not have access to NZTA Motocheck. This is not due to any prohibition, but
it is not a system that we have access to.  

 

Please note that requirement of ownership is that evidence of registration
and wof is correctly displayed.

 

 2. Does the council keep statistics on the number of infringements
against vehicles where the infringement has been incorrectly issued
for licence and wof? i.e vehicle presents as expired but live records
show it isn't? if so, please provide these for the last 24 months.

 

No, we do not collate statistics on this. While we will likely hold the
base information, this is not held in a way that we can extract and
provide an answer to this question without having to investigate all
tickets manually. Due to this we will be declining this part of the
request under section 17(f) of the LGOIMA, the information requested
cannot be made available without substantial collation or research.

 

 3. Have the council (be that councillor, community board, executive,
management or anyone employed) expressed any issue around sending
infringements to persons based on what they see on paper, when live
records present otherwise? within the past 24 months? if so please
provide copies.

 

We can confirm that the Council have not expressed any issue with the
current practices undertaken.

 

 4. Have the council (be that councillor, community board, executive,
management or anyone employed) discussed (in the last 24 months)
ignoring valid live data when what on paper In front of them presents
otherwise in order to increase revenue? and does that council have a
policy on this? if so, please provide information on both.

 

We can confirm that no issue has been raised with the process outlined in
our operational guidelines. All of our policies can be found on our public
website here: [1]Our policies : Christchurch City Council

 

You have the right to ask the Ombudsman to investigate and review our
decision. Complaints can be sent by email to
[2][email address].

 

Publication of responses to LGOIMA requests

Please note: our LGOIMA responses may be published on the Christchurch
City Council website a week after they have been responded to, with
requesters’ personal details withheld. If you have any concerns about
this, please contact the Official Information team on
[3][Christchurch City Council request email].

 

Nāku noa iti, nā

 

Jess Griffin
Official Information Advisor
Te Ratonga Ture me te Manapori - Legal & Democratic Services

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

 

 

This electronic email and any files transmitted with it are intended
solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed.
The views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender and
may not necessarily reflect the views of the Christchurch City Council.
If you are not the correct recipient of this email please advise the
sender and delete the email.

[4]Christchurch City Council logo

References

Visible links
1. https://ccc.govt.nz/the-council/plans-st...
2. mailto:[email address]
3. mailto:[Christchurch City Council request email]
4. Christchurch City Council logo
https://ccc.govt.nz/