Privacy Commissioner - Te Mana Matapono Matatapu

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Corrections/INZ Prisoners Programme

• Annual Report
• Technical information
• System description
• Historical activity

Annual Report

Purpose: To identify prisoners who fall within the revocation and/or deportation provisions of the Immigration Act 1987 as a result of their criminal convictions, or are subject to removal from the country because their permits to be in New Zealand have expired.

Year commenced: 2005

Features: Data transferred weekly by online transfer.

Corrections disclosure to INZ: Corrections discloses information about all newly admitted prisoners. Each prisoner record includes full name (and known aliases), date and place of birth, gender, prisoner unique identifier and name of the prison facility. Each prisoner's offence and sentence information is also included.

INZ disclosure to Corrections: For prisoners who are subject to removal or deportation orders, and who have no further means of challenging those orders, INZ discloses the full name, date and place of birth, gender, citizenship, prisoner unique identifier, immigration status and details of removal action that INZ intends to take.

2008/09 activity:

Match runs	52
Possible matches identified	340
Cases excluded as not being eligible for removal or deportation	287
Notices of adverse action	53
Successful challenges	1
Cases considered for removal or deportation	46
Removals and deportations from NZ at year end	34

Commentary: Last year we reported that INZ wanted to receive offence date information as part of this programme. Corrections and INZ are still discussing how to implement this.

Recent changes to the Sentencing Act 2002 introduced community-based sentences. INZ wishes to include prisoners with these sentences in the programme, but Corrections believes there is no provision to allow this. INZ is reviewing this policy.

Another matching issue identified during this period involved a discrepancy between one individual's sentencing record received in the programme and the relevant sentencing record held by Police. While the match only provided one offence record, which did not identify the prisoner as being potentially liable for deportation, a further check with Police information showed details of three offences, making the prisoner potentially liable for deportation. INZ is reviewing this.

Compliance: Compliant.

Technical information

Information matching provisions	Corrections Act 2004, s.181
Year authorised	2004
Programme type	Confirming eligibility Updating data
Unique identifiers	Corrections Entity Identification Number
On-Line transfers	Yes

System description

Each week Corrections transfers details of all newly admitted prisoners via a secure online transfer to a third party service provider that holds the file in a secure application. Immigration New Zealand (INZ) retrieves the file by signing into the application with a username and password, and then the data is transferred to INZ by secure encrypted link. The service provider does not have the ability to trigger uploads or downloads, or have access to the contents of any file.

The transfer includes identifying information such as full name (including known aliases), date of birth, gender, and citizenship. Also included are details of each prisoner's offence, whether the sentence includes home detention, length of sentence and dates of sentence commencement, parole eligibility and statutory release.

INZ matches this information against the information it holds on its database relating to persons who are not recorded as New Zealand citizens. Three hierarchical algorithms using different combinations of information are used to identify possible matches. The results of the match are manually scrutinised and verified by INZ staff before a notice of adverse action (s.103 notice) is sent to the individual at the prison. To ensure the correct identification of all matched individuals, INZ's Compliance Operations Branch performs a follow-up interview with the prisoner.

Where a prisoner is subject to deportation or removal orders and has no further means of challenging such orders (by appeal or otherwise), INZ supply Corrections with the prisoner's immigration status, including the date of any proposed removal action. This helps Corrections to make decisions about the management of a prisoner's sentence. For example, a prisoner might not be considered for re-integration assistance or temporary release.

Historical activity

Neither removal nor deportation overrides the sentence of imprisonment imposed by the Court.  As removals and deportations can take many years to complete, the removal and deportations recorded as at each year end includes cases initiated in previous years but completed in the current fiscal year. In effect, we provide a rolling result of case outcomes from the commencement of the programme.

INZ reported a total of 27 successful challenges in 2005/06 and 2006/07. It came to light that INZ were incorrectly defining a successful challenge as any instance where further verification steps subsequent to sending the s.103 notice resulted in no further adverse action against a matched individual. We advised INZ that a challenge should be reported when information contained in a s.103 notice is disputed. Following this advice, INZ reported that there were no successful challenges in the 2007/08 year.

	2005/06	2006/07	2007/08
Match runs	47	51	49
Number of client cases revealed by matching	588	411	335
Cases excluded as not being eligible for removal or deportation	420	326	269
Notices of adverse action	195	85	66
Successful challenges	27	27	0
Cases considered for removal or deportation	168	58	56
Number of resultant removals from NZ at year end[1]	7	19	21
Number of resultant deportations from NZ at year end[1]	3	5	11

 

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[1] As removals and deportations can take many years to complete and because of the manual nature of the processes associated with this match, INZ advise that it is not realistic for them to update the figures for previous fiscal years. Instead, the removal and deportations recorded as at each year end includes cases initiated in previous years but completed in the current fiscal year. In effect, we provide a rolling result of case outcomes from the commencement of the programme.