A few months back I attended an auction in Palmerston North. At that auction I was advised by an unrelated party that the police were ‘looking’ for me. I confronted the numerous police at the auction and was assured that no one was looking for me.
So, either the guy in charge of the auction was making it up, or the police were lying. Well, the guy running the auction had no need to make stuff up, so I’m pretty sure the police were lying.
When I got back, I made a Privacy Act request to identify all the police or Te Tari Pūreke (Firearm Safety Authority) people who had accessed my file. I didn’t ask for their names, just their QID number (Police Identification number) and the date and time of the access.
Police subsequently breached the Privacy Act by not responding within the statutory time frame of 20 working days. I started posting on X about it and, what do you know, my request was replied to.
There were some documents attached so I started looking through them. Then I came across a document included in that bundle emailed to me. It was a permit for the importation of a Heckler & Koch MP5 sub machine gun. I don’t own an MP5, although it is fair to say I’d like to.
The document (below) included the firearms licence number and name of the importer in Christchurch and the buyer’s full name, address in Auckland, and his firearms licence number. The redactions and red marking were made by me in order to protect the identity of the person the permit was issued for.
This is a massive breach of privacy for the person concerned. Imagine if police had sent these details to someone with connections to the criminal underworld and gangs.
The criminals would then know where a restricted firearm was located precisely. One can only imagine what might happen next.
I immediately notified police of this breach and posted it on X, so they cannot claim to be unaware of the breach. I also notified the relevant ministers, Nicole McKee and Mark Mitchell.
So far I have been met with a deafening silence from police. I have also notified the Privacy Commissioner of this breach.
We were told by successive governments that the gun register would be safe and secure, and yet here is proof that details of restricted weapons are being sent out by police data analysts without redaction to unrelated parties.
This is about as serious a privacy breach as one can get and this placed one firearms licence holder at risk, through no fault of his own. He is an innocent party in all of this. It is the police who now have to handle this monumental failure.
Hugh Devereux-Mack, the spokesman for COLFO (Council of Licenced Firearms Owners) makes a very good point on X:
The fact that @nzpolice and FSA so casually expose private data on licensed firearm owners is something we all should care about. We told you @GunControlNZ, @ginnyandersen and @MarkMitchellMP that this would happen. How much more proof do you need before admitting LFOS were right… https://t.co/Q0PGQKWdTy
— Hugh Devereux-Mack (@Hugh_Dm) November 14, 2024
He’s right. We told police and the politicians that this would happen, and now it has.
The police and their ‘business unit’ Te Tari Pūreke have repeatedly said that incidents such as these could not and would not happen. They are now shown up for what they really are: incompetent and dishonest.
Heads need to roll for this. I’m not just talking about the police data analyst who condescendingly emailed me refusing other aspects of my Privacy Act request while at the same time breaching the privacy of an unrelated third party.
I'll be OIA requesting all correspondence regarding this matter, as I have his QID number. I will not let this one go.
But more senior members of police and Te Tari Pūreke need to have their heads lopped off too. There are plenty more negative stories to come out of that organisation and the outrage, when some details are revealed, will be palpable as they concern data and who holds it.
The two minister need to haul Mike (behind the Wire) McIlraith and his boss Angela Brazier in to their offices for a ‘please explain’.
I will not be letting the privacy breach of my details rest either. Someone in police and Te Tari Pūreke breached my privacy to a guy with a mouth like a torn sack. I will find out who did it.
This is serious: it needs to stop and serious questions now need to be asked about the security of the gun register.
There will be more to come on this – you can be assured of it.
UPDATE: I was contacted by a Superintendent based at Police National HQ about this, he has also emailed me to say a full investigation is now underway looking into how his breach occurred. They have also requested that I take down the post on X. I will not be doing that, this is a serious issue that needs to be addressed and needs to be address with the highest of transparency possible. If I took down this article and post on X I imagine the Police would treat that as a win and deal with this in darkness.
