Source: Radio New Zealand
Two years ago police had warned the fingerprinting technology used could compromise public safety. George Prentzas / Unsplash
Police have yet to replace the fingerprinting technology they warned almost two years ago was so old it might compromise public safety.
There had been talks since 2024 about the urgency of getting a new national automated fingerprint identification system.
But an initial tender back then got waylaid.
That was despite a warning that failure to invest “could include delay in criminal investigations and compromised public safety”.
“Police are using the same technology that was in use in 2025” and in 2024, they told RNZ on Tuesday.
They had extended their contract with big Japanese tech firm NEC due to expire last July and were preparing a new tender.
“Police has not yet gone to market with a request for proposal and is still operating under the current contract with NEC,” Detective Inspector Craig Mason, manager of national forensic services, said in a statement.
In April 2024 police in an initial tender asked companies to outline the tech options.
The feedback they got from that was now two years old.
“Police is currently defining the requirements for a viable replacement technology,” Mason said.
“As police is now preparing for procurement, much of the information is commercially sensitive.”
The fingerprint plan in 2024 was to get live scanning tech to capture biometric data – in this case not just fingerprints, but palm and footprints too – at a rate of 50,000 to 55,000 new sets of full prints taken by officers a year, and 600,000 latent prints from 25,000 cases (like at crime scenes) a year.
The plan was 50 recording devices at 40 stations and another 130 mobile recorders at small stations and roadside.
Mason said the task of finding a suitable replacement system “is not affected or influenced at all” by policing powers legislation that aims to enhance intelligence gathering.
Documents linked to the legislation had a lot to say about the need for better evidence-handling tech.
A new digital evidence management system has not been funded by the government even though the legislation before Parliament anticipated that the tech would provide extra privacy safeguards.
Police were ordered to get a move on with this back in 2022 but did not subsequently find all the tech they needed to meet the Privacy Commissioner’s demands to delete unlawfully taken photos or render them out-of bounds for future investigations.
The Privacy Commissioner last week repeated his concerns the bill could have a “chilling effect on people’s rights.”
– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
