31 May 2021
Grant Carrol
By email to:
[FYI request #15447 email]
Dear Mr Carroll
REQUEST FOR INFORMATION: OUR REFERENCE OIA 01-21-15643
Thank you for your email of 14 May 2021 noting a recent social media post of a
Facebook user’s profile showing New Zealand Police staff standing with a member
of the public, and a superimposed caption reading
“I Stand With Israel Forever”.
You submitted a copy of the image in question, and seek the following information:
1. Is it considered appropriate for three members of the New Zealand Police, in
particular, two very senior members, to appear in a photo on a social media
platform with the caption
“I Stand With Israel Forever” on the photo?
2. Does New Zealand Police have any policy or procedures in place to regulate
how its members are able to support or oppose political causes and, if so, how
are these officers able to have their photo on a very widely used and viewed
social media platform with a caption such as
“I Stand With Israel Forever” in
the photo?
As you are aware, your request has been considered in line with the Of icial
Information Act 1982 (OIA), and I can now provide the following response.
The photo in question has had a filter applied to it. These types of filters (or frames)
are frequently applied to social media users’ profile photos, and are not things
Police (or any organisation) can control being applied to photos. In this example,
the relevant staff members were not engaging in any form of political event.
Police does have policy in place to help guide its employees in their dealings with
politicians and matters of a political nature. This policy is a publicly available at:
www.police.govt.nz/about-us/publication/elections-and-political-matters-policy. As
already mentioned, however, the staff members shown in the image you supplied
were not engaging in any form of political event, so the policy did not apply to them.
I trust this information provided addresses your area of interest; but you have the
right under the OIA to ask the Ombudsman to review my handling of your request
if you are not satisfied with Police’s response.
Sincerely
Tara Edwards
Practice Manager: Assurance Group
Police National Headquarters 180 Molesworth Street. PO BOX 3017 Wellington 6140 New Zealand
Telephone: 04 474 9499. . www.police.govt.nz
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