Police monitoring gang activity.
Photo: Supplied / NZ Police
A privacy expert says New Zealand could be become a “surveillance state”, as the government plans to give back the right for police to collect intelligence in public places.
The Police Association says recent court cases have left officers confused about when they can take photos and the move makes sense.
On Thursday, Police Minister Mark Mitchell said Cabinet had decided to amend the Policing Act to allow police to collect and use images in public spaces.
“The proposed amendments will re-affirm the prior common law position, making it clear that police can collect and use images in public spaces, and in places where police are lawfully present, for all lawful policing purposes,” he said. “This includes intelligence gathering and crime prevention, and other policing functions and associated activities.”
The amendments would also expand police powers to temporarily close areas in response to anti-social behaviour or public safety risks.
Privacy Foundation committee member and spokesperson on surveillance Gehan Gunasekara said the changes around photos extended police powers beyond what they’d ever been, rather than granting them back.
“What the police want is the power to photograph people and retain the images, in case they commit some case in the future,” he said. “Think about where that leads.
“It’s not targeting people who we actually know are committing crimes – it could be a licence to basically retain vast quantities of personal information, for whatever purpose the police deem is necessary and that’s really moving towards a surveillance state.”
A recent Supreme Court case – the Mahi Tamiefuna case – ruled police could not use a photo they had taken of a person on a public road during a routine traffic stop to convict that person of an unrelated crime.
An investigation by the Independent Police Conduct Authority and Privacy Commission in 2022 found police routinely and illegally photographed and filmed young people and adults, after RNZ reported [https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/474366/police-illegally-photographing-youth-maori-a-widespread-practice-investigation-finds police in Wairarapa were unlawfully photographing young Māori.
Gunasekara, a privacy law specialist at the University of Auckland, said the Policing Act currently allowed police to photograph people under investigation, or when they were arrested or detained, but they must delete those images, if no prosecution eventuated.
He said allowing pictures or images to be gathered randomly risked racial and ethnic profiling.
“It’s not going to engender a greater public confidence among those vulnerable groups, who obviously already don’t trust the police.”
He questioned where the images would be kept, if people could access them and whether they would be deleted after a period of time.
“The argument that, if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear – it’s a tired old argument,” he said. “It’s not really anyone else’s business what you are doing in a particular place.
“If you are lawfully there, it’s no-one else’s business for that to be collected by the police.”
Gunasekara said civil liberties groups may be concerned about the proposed changes where police could close off more areas – beyond roads – in response to anti-social behaviour. He wanted to see the wording of these changes and said it could have a “chilling” effect on the right to protest.
‘Restoring commonsense’
Chris Cahill
Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
Police Association head Chris Cahill welcomed the changes around police taking photographs and images in a public place, saying it was “restoring commonsense”.
He said the Tamiefuna case – where different courts and judges had disagreed – led to confusion on the ground and, in 2025, the operation of CCTV in public places was prolific.
“I think the public would find it very strange that you could have a gathering of gang members or a load of boyracers in a public place, and police couldn’t photograph them, to then use it to identify if crimes were committed by those groups in the future.”
He disagreed the changes would lead to a “surveillance state”, but said rules were needed around how police stored the images and for how long, with possible input from the privacy commissioner.
That might depend on who was being photographed and in what context, Cahill said. For instance, a photographed group of protesters where no crime occurred might be deleted sooner than images taken of a gang gathering.
He said, next week, the Police Association would discuss the use of body cameras and the changes to the Policing Act could allow body cameras to be worn.
“I think the public have a growing expectation that police would have [body cameras] available, so they are also under greater scrutiny by using them, but equally, there’s answer when there’s complaints so people can see what actually did occur.”
Cahill said amendments expanding powers to temporarily close more areas were likely to do with difficulties police had dealing with anti-social road users, such as boyracers.
“At the moment, they are finding, on a number of occasions, they can’t stop large gatherings of disorderly youths, because of the area they are in, so they want better controls of that.”
He said police in New Zealand are very aware of striking a balance between a right to protest and keeping people safe.
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