20 Apr 2026, 09:12

This opinion piece was first published in The Post on 20 April 2026.

It concerns me greatly that the Policing Amendment Bill currently going through Parliament has the potential to significantly affect people’s privacy rights, but its impact seems to have largely passed most New Zealanders by.

This bill will authorise the police to video and record people when they are out in public and I’d like people to think about how they’d expect police to be using this power.

Collecting information about people is a vital part of police’s role in investigating and preventing crime, keeping the public safe and keeping police officers safe.

My role is to see that there is an agreed set of reasonable boundaries so police can do their difficult job, without undermining people’s rights. From a privacy perspective that means police should only be collecting and retaining intelligence and information about people that they need to carry out their functions.

There are real questions about how much information is good policing intelligence to stop crime, and how much could be bulk collection of images of people going about their lawful daily lives.

Although the bill will allow for police to collect information for “an intelligence purpose”, that’s not defined and is a low bar for police to clear.

My concern is how this impacts on people’s civil rights. For example, it’s possible this bill could allow police to take video of young people hanging out in a park, not because they’re connected to a possible crime, investigation, or public safety reason, but to keep tabs on a group of people because that video “might” be useful one day.

As Privacy Commissioner, there are questions I need to ask on behalf of all New Zealanders. Put simply, I have deep concerns about the bill’s implications, especially for Māori, because we’ve seen this all before.

In 2022 my office ran an inquiry with the Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) about police in Wairarapa stopping rangatahi in the street and taking their photos “in anticipation” of the possibility of future offending. I found that police were not justified in photographing the rangatahi, if the photographs were not necessary for a lawful policing purpose. It’s not clear how the bill will ensure these scenarios won’t happen again.

I’m not suggesting taking away policing powers, or that intelligence gathering is not needed; just that it needs to be protective of New Zealanders’ privacy rights.

I also think it’s critically important to a democratic society that individuals can complain when things go wrong, including when police collect, use, or share information about them when this impacts on their privacy. This bill would make that more difficult. There must also be sufficient oversight of police’s handling of personal information, either by my office or another independent organisation.

I’ll be raising these issues in my select committee submission, and I encourage others to make a submission too, or to raise their concerns with their MP before submissions close on April 22.

The Policing Amendment Bill needs careful consideration, and we need to take the time to get this right.