Phil
Pennington
Reporter
The government is seeking
advice from officials on protecting electoral systems, as
the threat from advanced artificial intelligence
grows.
The country’s cyber watchdog – the National
Cyber Security Centre – joined Five Eyes partner security
agencies recently in warning organisations the
overall threat is real and immediate.
Justice
Minister Paul Goldsmith said the country had established
mechanisms for identifying and responding to risks to
elections.
“The focus is on ensuring those
arrangements continue to be effective and responsive to the
evolving threat environment.
“I have requested advice
of officials and expect to receive it soon,” he said.
“However, I would always expect agencies to be actively
considering their stewardship responsibilities to identify
changes in the environment.”
The Electoral Commission
earlier said its security practices took
frontier AI into account, but also that it was
considering “the implications of this newly identified
threat on our system’s readiness”.
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Goldsmith said he
could not direct the commission on how it
operated.
“Protecting the integrity and security of
New Zealand’s elections is a longstanding priority,” he
added.
“Relevant agencies taking a stewardship
approach work together to continually assess and respond to
evolving risks, including those associated with emerging
technologies such as AI.
“Processes, systems and
inter-agency arrangements are in place to identify, monitor
and respond to threats to elections, and those arrangements
continue to evolve, as the threat environment
changes.”
Canada has a taskforce especially to protect
elections including from cyber threats. Set up in 2019, the
Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections (SITE)
taskforce co-ordinates with the country’s spy agencies, runs
briefings to raise awareness of evolving threats and
provides targeted support to operational systems.
RNZ
asked if Goldsmith had considered if New Zealand needed
something like the taskforce, but he did not address
that.
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