Nicole McKee
ACT firearms spokesperson
The accidental release of over 140 email addresses of licensed firearms owners shows once again that Police are incapable of keeping licensed firearms owners’ information secure.
Early yesterday Police sent out an email requesting action to a list of licensed firearms owners, forgetting to blind copy the emails. The email addresses of over 140 people were shared, information that can be used to identify them and, in some cases, their place of work.
To add insult to injury, in at least one case the email demanded action on matters which had already been undertaken and inspected by Police.
Firearms owners already had little confidence in Police’s ability to securely maintain and administer a firearms registry and this latest mistake reinforces that. If Police can’t even tell the difference between Cc and Bcc in an email, how on earth can they keep records secure?
This episode demonstrates once again that the full registration of firearms is a wasteful and dangerous exercise and ACT will repeal it. It also shows that the administration of information about firearms and their licensed owners needs to be removed from New Zealand Police and placed under the care of a truly independent and trusted firearms authority, which ACT has committed to establishing.
