Talks are continuing with New Zealand’s Five Eyes partners about if and when they will share details of their citizens’ criminal offending.
The Migration 5 countries – New Zealand, Australia, Canada, the US and Britain – already work together on border policies, migrant data-sharing and technology.
The Criminal Database Checking group is due to meet online again at the end of this month.
Data released under the Official Information Act showed it had eight online meetings last year, and its first face-to-face meeting in March, in Wellington.
New Zealand currently chairs Migration 5.
The group shares details of migrants' travel records and visas, but at present, not their own citizens' data.
A recent document request in the UK confirms the group was already sharing data on citizens of other M5 countries when they apply for visas.
“The bilateral arrangements for fingerprint checking with all M5 partners enable the sharing of information about all third country nationals. Therefore, if a fingerprint match is found to a national of Australia, Canada or New Zealand the biometric transaction history and biographic immigration history of that individual will be shared with the US.”
It means a New Zealander, for example travelling to Canada, can have information provided by Australia, the US and Britain to Canada.
New Zealand does not ask who each country on-shares the information with, nor do the agreements with M5 partners require them to say.
The UK said Migration 5 had no current plans to create a “Single Window” system enabling member countries to directly access each other’s immigration data.
