Phil
Pennington
Reporter
The police minister asserts
that officers have all the IT they need for enhanced
intelligence gathering, in a clash over the foundations for
incoming policing powers.
“I think the police have got
the systems, they’ve got the capability to be able to meet
the need,” Mark Mitchell told the justice select committee
scrutinising Budget 2026.
“We’re investing heavily
into their systems.”
However, just weeks ago, official
reviewers found police data was fragmented.
“These
systems are often fragmented, difficult to integrate and
increasingly misaligned with policing workflows,” said the
police performance review
in April.
It said progress on data fixes “appears
piecemeal and slow”.
Meanwhile, the privacy
commissioner concluded: “The current state of police’s
information management systems… may make it difficult for
police to find and use the information they have collected
and retained to fight crime and keep communities
safe.”
The committee clash pitted Mitchell against
Labour police spokesperson Ginny Andersen.
‘I don’t
agree with it’
At heart, it is about whether the
policing amendment bill before Parliament is poised to give
police new powers or just re-instate eroded ones – and
specifically over whether the bill will drop tonnes of extra
intelligence data into weak and fragmented IT
systems.
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“The privacy commissioner has ruled that you
don’t currently have the existing IT infrastructure,”
Andersen charged.
Mitchell responded he’d like to see
that ruling, adding: “If that is the privacy commissioner’s
position, then I don’t agree with it.”
The Officer of
Privacy Commissioner (OPC) made a formal submission
on the bill in April, saying: “OPC has repeatedly advised
police that, without significant upgrades to police
information management systems, which may well require
additional investment, police will be unable to safely
manage the increased volume of information that could be
collected under this bill.
“This bill should not
proceed without the necessary major improvements to police
information management systems,” said commissioner Michael
Webster.
But what improvements?
Mitchell told
the scrutiny hearing an “enormous amount of work” and
“significant investment through this budget round” would go
into police physical and IT infrastructure.
Budget
2026 contained unspecified funding for a new fingerprinting
and biometrics tech system, but not for a digital evidence
management system.
Andersen zeroed in on how police
had mismanaged photos en masse for years, asking where the
budget and business case was to improve that.
Ad hoc
police systems and practices were panned for unlawfully
photographing rangatahi, and change was imposed on a
resistant force, after an inquiry in 2022/23, prompted by
RNZ reporting. This change was a crucial spark for the
policing powers bill that proponents said would restore
officers’ “confidence” to take the photos necessary for
investigations.
Police told the scrutiny hearing the
key upgrade on the photo front was to officers’ mobile
phones, so they could take, handle, delete and recall images
of people much more easily.
This was being added on to
digital notebook features that include interviewing
recording capability.
Officers have made at least 6500
notes a day on these, since a rollout in
2023.
Mitchell told Andersen: “Police have shown that
they are responsible, that they can use their existing
systems to be able to support the work that’s been done and
that we’re investing heavily into their
systems.”
Bodycam footage flow
The policing
powers bill would authorise officers to video and
audio-record people when they were out in
public.
“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,” said Commissioner
Webster.
The bill would also legally help with Police
Commissioner Richard Chambers’ aim to roll out bodyworn
cameras by next year.
The cams would generate enormous
amounts of new footage and data. Police forces in other
countries have struggled with the volumes.
A police
internal report several years back said bodyworn cameras
“would produce more risk than benefit”, without an efficient
and effective information management system.
‘It is
not a full digital evidence management system’
RNZ
questioned police on how the phone upgrade focused on at the
scrutiny hearing fitted with any wider information
management upgrade.
“It is not a full digital evidence
management system, in that it is not designed to ingest and
manage digital evidence from other sources,” police
replied.
“A full digital evidence management system
would still be desired in the future.”
IN 2020, police
tried to get such a system, but were stymied then and again
in 2024 by lack of funding, as RNZ
revealed earlier. The so-called Reframe transformation
programme that covered the data upgrades was cut back and
given a short-term focus in 2024.
Police’s lack of
such a digital evidence system has been a focus of many
official reports.
The April 2026 performance review
diagnosed the problem: “Police’s digital environment spans a
vast portfolio of systems.
“Digital evidence is
becoming increasingly fragmented across formats,
jurisdictions and platforms, which complicates prosecution
efforts.”
The regulatory impact statement (RIS) on the
bill said a strengthened system would build public trust in
the enhanced police powers.
“This work is likely to be
significant and will likely require a business case to be
developed, for consideration in a future budget cycle,” it
said.
The performance review did not put a data
systems fix in its immediate upgrades box, but 3-5 years
out. (As an aside, the review also called the 111 system
“increasingly fragile”, but a fix for that is not
funded.)
“Officers often rely on manual workarounds to
bridge gaps between systems, slowing down processes and
creating inefficiencies,” said the review.
“The
challenge is compounded by volume of digital evidence police
needs to manage. Every investigation, from retail theft to
transnational crime, involves large volumes of CCTV footage,
encrypted messages, social media content and forensic
files.”
Volumes will grow further, but “current
storage and processing capabilities are struggling to keep
up, and legacy systems cannot deliver the speed or
flexibility required for modern policing”.
Information
and corporate systems were fragmented and required manual
workarounds.
“There is no clear pathway for asset and
system renewal.”
The performance review added the data
issues “need to be presented as a coherent package of
enabling investment”.
Some work was going on to
modernise investigative technology, digitise case files and
explore automation tools, it said.
RNZ revealed
this week police had quietly adopted generative AI for
the first time for translating and transcribing work in
investigations, after initially dumping it last year, when
officers misused the AI.
RNZ asked Mitchell what
investment in Budget 2026 would go to a full digital
evidence management system and what the plan was to handle
masses of bodyworn camera footage.
He did not respond
on those matters, but on Friday afternoon said that the
biometric ID system had funding in Budget 2026.
“In
last year’s budget, investment was made to upgrade police’s
Enterprise Resource Management (ERM) and police is
continuing to upgrade its Infringement Management System
(PIMS). Together, these commitments are helping to
significantly strengthen police IT infrastructure.
“My
expectation is that police approach everything they do with
integrity and high levels of trust. I have confidence this
would extend to the development and use of any technologies
required while undertaking police duties.”
The
performance review said ERM was a replacement for HR and
payroll, and a cornerstone of a “transformation” of police
data systems. It replaced “outdated finance, human resource,
and asset management systems with a unified platform aligned
to all-of-government digital standards”.
“This is not
just an administrative upgrade – it is the backbone for a
future where data flows seamlessly across police and its
partners.”
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