Hi Joshua

 

Many thanks for resending this – request received today.

 

We’ll get back to you asap.

 

Cheers

Katrine

 

Katrine Evans

Assistant Commissioner (Legal and Policy)

 

To keep up with what we're doing, you can subscribe to our privacy
newsletters and other materials at [1]www.privacy.org.nz/subscribe/. You
can also now follow us on [2]Facebook and [3]Twitter

 

Caution: If you have received this message in error please notify the
sender immediately and then delete this message along with any
attachments.  Please treat the contents of this message as private and
confidential.

 

References

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Dear Mr Grainger

Decision about request under the Official Information Act 1982 (Our Ref:
P/0073)

Thank you for your email of 25 September 2012, which we received on
26 September.

 

You have requested:

all documents (including emails, memos, briefings, assessments, and so on)
that the Privacy Commissioner currently holds on automatic numberplate
recognition.

 

In the introduction to your request, you specifically note that

According to Computerworld ('Privacy Commissioner consulted on number
plate recognition trial', 30/08/12) the Privacy Commissioner holds some
information on the Police's trial of automatic numberplate recognition.

 

We therefore understand the scope of this request relates specifically to
information about the use of Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) by
the New Zealand Police. If this is wrong and your request is wider, please
let us know.

 

Documents that we will release

We are making a few redactions under section 9(2)(a) (protection of
privacy of natural persons) from documents that we are releasing. The
redactions relate to names of officials on the correspondence, and licence
plate numbers included in the post-pilot report from the Ministry of
Justice. We will note where we have made redactions so that this is clear
for you.

 

We hope to be able to send you these documents tomorrow.

 

The documents that we are sending you are:

1.       Draft Privacy Impact Assessment prepared by the Ministry of
Justice, titled Use of Automatic Number Plate Recognition Technology in
conjunction with the NZ Police, dated May 2010

2.       Memorandum from Ministry of Justice to Office of the Privacy
Commissioner titled Report on Pilot between NZ Police and the Ministry of
Justice using ANPR Technology, dated May 2010

3.       Email from Ministry of Justice to Office of the Privacy
Commissioner (with copy to staff at NZ Police) titled Privacy Impact
Assessment – Joint Pilot ANPR technology, dated Wednesday 19 May 2010

4.       Email from Office of the Privacy Commissioner to Ministry of
Justice titled RE: Privacy Impact Assessment – Joint Pilot ANPR
technology, dated Tuesday 25 May 2010

5.       Email from Office of the Privacy Commissioner to Ministry of
Justice titled RE: Privacy Impact Assessment – Joint Pilot ANPR
technology, dated Thursday 27 May 2010

6.       Email from Ministry of Justice to Office of the Privacy
Commissioner titled PIA – Joint Pilot ANPR technology, dated Tuesday 15
June 2010

7.       Email from Office of the Privacy Commissioner to Ministry of
Justice titled RE: PIA – Joint Pilot ANPR technology, dated Tuesday 15
June 2010

8.       Email from Ministry of Justice to Office of the Privacy
Commissioner and NZ Police, titled ANPR Results, with attachment titled
ANPR June Test Results version 2 to PCO.xls, dated Friday 2 July 2010

9.       Email from Ministry of Justice to Office of the Privacy
Commissioner, titled ANPR post-pilot report to the Office of the Privacy
Commissioner, dated 23 February 2011

10.   Email from Office of the Privacy Commissioner to Ministry of
Justice, dated 4 March 2011

11.   Email from Ministry of Justice to Office of the Privacy
Commissioner  and NZ Police, titled RE: ANPR post-pilot report to the
Office of the Privacy Commissioner, with attachments titled Report to OPC
– post pilot.FINAL.doc and PIA – ANPR technology version to OPC FINAL.doc,
dated 7 March 2011

12.   Email from Office of the Privacy Commissioner to Ministry of
Justice, titled RE: ANPR post-pilot report to the Office of the Privacy
Commissioner, dated 9 March 2011

13.   Email from Office of the Privacy Commissioner to NZ Police, titled
Police use of ANPR, dated 17 August 2012

14.   Email from Office of the Privacy Commissioner to NZ Police, titled
ANPR: follow-up question about notification, dated 30 August 2012

15.   Letter from New Zealand Police to Office of the Privacy Commissioner
titled Police ANPR trial, dated 21 September 2012 (the response to our
email of 30 August 2012).

Documents that we are withholding

The Privacy Commissioner has various functions under section 13 of the
Privacy Act. Several of these involve receiving information from and
providing advice to agencies on policy or technology related matters such
as ANPR.

 

It is vital for us to be able to have free and frank discussions with
agencies to be able to fulfil those statutory duties. It is also vital for
us to be able to discuss policy matters freely and frankly within our
office, so that we can perform our statutory duties.

 

Section 116 of the Privacy Act requires us to maintain secrecy in relation
to matters that come to our knowledge in the exercise of our functions.
The Commissioner only has discretion to release information where that is
necessary for the purpose of giving effect to the Act. Section 18(c)(i) of
the Official Information Act permits us to withhold information where
providing it would be contrary to provisions of another enactment, such as
our secrecy provision.

 

We have therefore withheld some information on this basis. Section 9(2)(g)
of the Official Information Act provides additional authority for
withholding this information.

 

However, as requested, here is a brief description of what we have
withheld.

 

The withheld information falls into three categories:

·         internal discussions between staff of the Office of the Privacy
Commissioner, dated July and August 2012, and internal notes before the
most recent meeting with Police

·         our own notes from meetings held with the Police (17 January
2008; and 29 August 2012) and the Ministry of Justice (3 June 2010) –
there were no official minutes from these meetings

·         some discussions held with an overseas counterpart about their
experiences with ANPR

We have also withheld some administrative emails that relate to setting up
meeting times, and associated matters, with the Police. These seem to be
outside the scope of your request.

 

Under section 28 of the Official Information Act 1982 you have the right
to ask the Ombudsmen to investigate and review our decision on your
request.

 

I hope that this is helpful.

 

Yours sincerely

Katrine Evans

Assistant Commissioner (Legal and Policy)

    

To keep up with what we're doing, you can subscribe to our privacy
newsletters and other materials at [1]www.privacy.org.nz/subscribe/. You
can also now follow us on [2]Facebook and [3]Twitter

 

Caution: If you have received this message in error please notify the
sender immediately and then delete this message along with any
attachments.  Please treat the contents of this message as private and
confidential.

 

References

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Dear Joshua

Here are the documents, as promised. As you can see, it’s a 9MB file – if
you have difficulties opening it, let me know and we can post a copy to
you instead.

 

You asked what other agencies might be using ANPR. There have been recent
media comments about use of number plate capture systems in the Transport
arena, but I don’t know if this is within your area of interest. If it is,
I suggest you approach the Ministry or NZTA directly.   

 

Kind regards

Katrine

Hi Joshua
I'll certainly double-check on Monday, but I'm pretty sure we only hold the one PIA document (the draft from Justice that you have).

I'm glad the layout worked well for you and will pass your compliments onto my team member who organised the documents.

Kind regards
Katrine
________________________________________
From: Joshua Grainger [[OIA #532 email]]
Sent: Friday, 26 October 2012 9:26 p.m.
To: Katrine Evans
Subject: Re: OIA on ANPR

Dear Katrine Evans,

Thank you very much for your reply: perfectly set out, easy to
follow, with headings and documents separated out: a whole tier
above the normal response I've come to expect from agencies when
receiving OIA responses.

I did just want to check that one document isn't missing however:
paragraph 9 of the MoJ PIA mentions a different Police PIA
regarding ANPR. The Privacy Commissioner's Office requests to see
this PIA in Document 5, the email dated 27/05/10. Can I confirm
that this Police PIA was never received by the Office of the
Privacy Commissioner, as if it was I imagine it'd fall within the
scope of my request?

Yours sincerely,

Joshua Grainger

show quoted sections

Hi Joshua
Just to confirm that the document that we sent you appears to be the only Police PIA regarding ANPR that we hold.
Kind regards
Katrine

show quoted sections