Joint IPCA/OPC investigation recommends overhaul of Police privacy practices

Independent Police Conduct Authority and Office of the Privacy Commissioner Joint Inquiry into Police conduct when photographing members of the public finds systemic privacy breaches.

The report found that a general lack of awareness amongst Police of their obligations under the Privacy Act has led to officers routinely taking, using and retaining photographs when it is not lawful for them to do so. It also found that thousands of photographs of members of the public were either incorrectly stored or retained.

The Joint Inquiry was initiated in March 2020 after Wairarapa whānau complained that Police officers were photographing their rangatahi in circumstances they felt was unfair or unjustified.

After subsequent media coverage led more people to report similar experiences, it became apparent that the issues these incidents raised had much broader application. The Inquiry considered wider concerns about the way in which photographs or video recordings of members of the public were being taken, used, and retained in a variety of policing contexts.

The Joint Inquiry highlighted that while Police will sometimes have lawful and valid reasons to take photographs, it must be done in a privacy-compliant way. “Digital photography can be a powerful policing tool,” stated an OPC media release, “but as sensitive biometric personal information it must also be collected, used, stored and retained lawfully and safely.”

The Joint Inquiry found that Police were not justified in photographing the rangatahi, as the photographs were not necessary for a lawful policing purpose. We also found that, in these incidents, Police had not properly sought consent from the rangatahi or their parents or caregivers before taking the photographs, and had not adequately explained why the photographs were being taken and what they would be used for.

Police had also developed a practice of regularly taking duplicate sets of “voluntary” fingerprints and photographs from youths who ended up in Police custody for suspected offending and retaining them for a longer period than permitted by the regime for compulsory prints and photographs under the Policing Act.

The joint inquiry also found a widespread belief amongst officers that “there is no difference between photographing adults or youths for intelligence-gathering or investigative purposes, notwithstanding the fact that children and young people have special protections in the NZ criminal justice system, set out in both the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCROC) and the Oranga Tamariki Act.”

“Many officers mistakenly see consent as allowing them to collect personal information, including photographs and prints, in situations where the law does not otherwise allow them to do so,” stated the OPC. “We found that a person’s consent cannot make the otherwise unlawful or unnecessary collection of personal information lawful or compliant with the Privacy Act.”

Loktronic Limi t e d 30 years servicing NZ’ s S e c u r ity Industry