That’s to say, there were only a few clear cases of improper use in fourinstances involving five police staff out of more than 350,000 searches. They are now facing the police’s National Integrity Unit for their misuse of the system.
That headline number looks past another 120-odd police staff who might also have used the system to improperly search for their own vehicles.
But even that number isn’t the point. Rather, the focus here should be on the fact that NZ Police simply doesn’t know, even after an audit process of months.
It is still checking to see if those 120 police staff used the privately owned network of CCTV cameras to search for their own cars because they were testing out the system or because their vehicles were stolen.
It’s also possible they were keeping tabs on their partners, spying on a neighbour or admiring the driving of a newly licenced child.
And that’s the real problem here. Police appear to be increasingly embracing powerful technology-led ways to keep our community safe without putting in place systems that will earn public confidence.
The summary of the audit - which is all police have released - shows law enforcement embraced, with increasing enthusiasm, access to two privately owned CCTV networks without putting in place obvious safety nets.
Those safety nets were so obvious they had actually been explained in great detail to police commanders back in 2017 when police first embarked on the use of this technology.
Back then, senior police staff were told through a Privacy Impact Assessment how important it was to set up systems to manage the use of such systems - and how important it was to audit use and report it publicly.
We know the audits weren’t done. That became obvious last year when the Herald revealed police had executed an exploit on the system by falsely recording vehicles as stolen so they could access the real-time tracking function it offers.
That’s a facility to which almost 1000 police staff have access. It allows a number plate to be entered into the two CCTV networks which operate across big box stores, petrol stations, shopping malls, supermarkets and town centres.
The CCTV networks police use are privately owned. Photo / Wang Gang
With the number plate entered, the system automatically scans for a match and produces an alert when a vehicle with matching details comes into the range of one of its cameras.
When the Herald revealed the exploit, Police announced it would audit the system - five years after it was first strongly urged to do so and four years after it started using it.
Having carried out the audit, the summary report shows that there were a range of other “safety net” steps it was also now putting in place.
Those include “helping to make it clearer and more intuitive what level of supporting information needs to be recorded” to justify camera access. It also meant police would be “reinforcing expectations around responsible usage”.
There were other “ideas” that also would improve accountability which police would be putting before the two providers, Auror and Safer Cities. The report also flagged the “likely” repeat audits which it “may” publish and would provide “on request” to oversight bodies.
Police Minister Ginny Andersen should be concerned police were caught flat-footed on audits which were clearly needed and recommended from the outset. With regular audits and control systems, would we still be unsure if 120 police staff used the system inappropriately?
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins pictured with Ginny Andersen upon her promotion to Minister of Police. Photo / Mark Mitchell
It seems likely that were police to have accepted and followed the 2017 recommendations, there would be less of a chance of rule-bending or breaking down the line - including the falsehood required to invent stolen cars.
People ask why it matters. ‘So what?’, some say, because it’s the criminals that suffer.
But it’s not always criminals whose rights get trampled. And - we should remember - it’s the courts who decide who the criminals are. It’s the police’s job to get them to court, where that decision is made.
We have been here before. A decade ago, police routinely used an exploit to get around the Privacy Act, avoid search warrants and extract highly personal financial information from banks and a range of other businesses.
It was an exploit which saw banks judge critically those who were of interest to police. In a case highlighted by the Herald, that judgment exacted a severe toll.
With the number plate surveillance - and facial recognition - police have yet to inhabit a framework intended to manage or even avoid the occurrence of those adverse scenarios. In the case of automatic number plate recognition, it’s astonishing that is the case six years after police were warned.
There is a broad future of technology advances awaiting us and police. What of artificial intelligence? Surely this will have a role in policing at some stage.
It is critical police are prepared for future advances to not only apply new technology in a proportionate way, but to explain to the public how they are doing so and why.
