Summarised by Centrist
Police reinstated an artificial intelligence transcription system six months after abandoning it over officer misuse, despite known risks of fabricated content and the absence of a formal audit since its return.
Official Information Act documents show the police high-tech crime group trialled OpenAI’s Whisper model for six months to translate and transcribe non-English recordings used in investigations.
The model was found to be 45% inaccurate when processing Māori and Pacific languages and was barred from being used for those recordings.
Officers also breached restrictions by using it to process English-language audio.
“Significant misuse noted,” a police technology oversight group recorded in March 2025.
“Continued use not endorsed; trial terminated.”
Another document said the misuse showed the limits of relying on “behavioural controls alone”.
Police reconsidered the decision in September 2025 after operational demand remained high and officers began turning to other tools.
“Turning off the tool increased risk of staff using unapproved alternatives,” meeting minutes said.
Whisper was then reinstated with tighter controls. Police say only trained and approved staff can use it, and its output must not be relied on for evidence or critical decisions without verification by a qualified person.
The system has now been used in investigations for nine months.
Concerns remain about the model’s tendency to produce words or passages that were never spoken, known as hallucinations.
A 2024 Cornell University study(is this still relevant in the ever progressing AI world) found Whisper hallucinated in about 1% of transcriptions, at times inventing racial commentary, violent language and medical treatments.
Police said they were unaware of any “material issues” caused by translation or transcription errors.
However, despite police policy requiring six-monthly audits of generative AI use, no formal audit of Whisper has been carried out since the trial.
Police said every use was logged and the system remained subject to ongoing monitoring and “stringent usage controls”.
