27 May 2022
Andrew Ecclestone
Deputy Chair
New Zealand Council for Civil Liberties
[FYI request #19254 email]
Tēnā koe Andrew,
Official Information Act (OIA) request: Statistics NZ information on interactions with
Customs and NZSIS re: data issues
Thank you for your email of 2 May 2022 requesting the following information under the
Official Information Act 1982 (the Act):
On 12 April 2022, the department refused the Council’s request of 8 February 2022
(correspondence for which can be found here: https://fyi.org.nz/request/18491-stats-
nz-discussion-paper-regarding-the-dimensions-of-security-vs-transparency#incoming-
72316).
Please provide the Council with the following information:
1. A list of all email communications to and from any Statistics New Zealand
employee, secondee or contractor and any Customs New Zealand employee,
secondee or contractor for the period 1 May 2018 – 30 April 2022. This list should
include the sent or received date, the email account it was sent from or received by,
the subject line and the filenames of any documents attached to the email. Under
section 16 of the OIA, our preferred means of receiving this information is in tabular
form in spreadsheet or CSV format.
2. The contents of all emails identified by Statistics NZ in the list generated when
responding to item 1 above that relate to the following topics:
a. Data sharing
b. Data ethics
c. Data security
d. Transparency
e. Data governance
f. Data management
g. The writing or circulation of advice, a paper, memo or guidance on
‘security vs transparency’
3. The attachments to any of the emails meeting the criteria identified in items 1
and 2 above.
4. Al email communications received by any Statistics NZ employee, secondee or
contractor from an employee, secondee or contractor of the NZ Security Intelligence
[Statistics New Zealand request email]
toll-free 0508 525 525
stats.govt.nz
HP House
8 Gilmer Terrace
PO Box 2922
Wellington 6140
Service in the period 1 April 2019 to 30 April 2022 relating to any of the terms
identified in item 2 above.
5. Al notes or other written material held by Statistics NZ of meetings any of its
employees, secondees or contractors have had with any employees, secondees or
contractors of the NZ Security Intelligence Service for the period 1 April 2019 to 30
April 2022 relating to any of the terms identified in item 2 above.Al records of how the
department searched for the information requested by the Council on 8 February
2022. This includes search terms used when querying information and records
management systems including the department’s email system, the names of the
systems searched, the email accounts searched, the officials from whom information
was sought, and the information the department provided to Customs New Zealand
as part of its efforts to locate the information requested by the Council.
Due to the substantial amount of work that would be required to research and collate the
information you have requested, we are refusing your request under section 18(f) of the OIA.
We consulted with you as required by section 18B of the OIA. Stats NZ sent two emails, one
on 6 May 2022 and the second on 24 May 2022, regarding refinement of the scope of the
OIA request but received no further refinement from you.
As per Stats NZ's email to you on 6 May 2022, a search of emails between Stats NZ and
Customs NZ for the period 1 May 2018 – 30 April 2022 returned over 60,000 emails. The
search tool Stats NZ uses does not provide the filenames of any documents attached to the
emails. In order for Stats NZ to provide you with the information requested in
Item 1, a Stats
NZ staff member wil need to sight al the information that wil be collated for producing the
spreadsheet, then go into each individual identified email, which has an attachment/s to
collate that information then add it to the spreadsheet. This wil have to be done twice; once
for email communication between Stats NZ and Customs NZ, and then a second time for
email communication between Stats NZ and NZSIS.
Furthermore, each email produced for
Item 2 wil need to be sighted; this is necessary to
determine the scope of the request. Stats NZ carried out a sample exercise using the topics,
as search terms, and emails were randomly sampled from the list and were found to have
content that was not relevant to the scope of the request.
Currently, four Stats NZ staff have been diverted from their original work to be involved in the
research and collation required to determine the preliminary scope of this request. We do not
consider charging you for this request to be a helpful solution because this work could not be
done or backfilled by temporary staff; it can only be carried out by staff involved with the
process who would be suitably familiar with the information you have requested.
Stats NZ’s ability to continue standard operations would hence be impaired, and we consider
this to be an inefficient use of resources. We also do not believe an extension to the
timeframe for this request would reduce the impact on our staff, who would need to perform
the extensive research and collation.
You have the right to seek an investigation and review by the Ombudsman of this decision.
Information about how to make a complaint is available at
www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or
freephone 0800 802 602.
[Statistics New Zealand request email]
toll-free 0508 525 525
stats.govt.nz
HP House
8 Gilmer Terrace
PO Box 2922
Wellington 6140
Please note that it is our policy to proactively release our responses to official information
requests where possible. This letter, with your personal details removed, wil be published on
the Stats NZ website. Publishing responses creates greater openness and transparency of
government decision-making and helps better inform public understanding of the reasons for
decisions.
Ngā mihi nui
Kate Satterthwaite
Senior Manager, Executive and Government Relations
Office of the Chief Executive
Stats NZ
[Statistics New Zealand request email]
toll-free 0508 525 525
stats.govt.nz
HP House
8 Gilmer Terrace
PO Box 2922
Wellington 6140
