Changing How Surveillance Activities Are Regulated in New Zealand: The Search and Surveillance Bill 2009

Abstract

Covert surveillance can be summarised as the monitoring of behavior, activities, or other changing information, intentionally without the subject’s prior knowledge. Covert surveillance can act to curtail rights, such as privacy, or be a vital tool in preventing and detecting crime. For citizens to accept and consent to certain forms of surveillance, particularly covert, the state should be accountable for its actions. It cannot be left with an unfettered discretion to determine why and where it carries out covert surveillance on, and on behalf of its citizens, without some form of legal responsibility. The New Zealand Law Commission’s 2007 Report Search and Surveillance Powers resulted from a growing perception that the law in New Zealand relating to search and surveillance is outdated, inconsistent, spread over a large number of statutes and has been developed in piecemeal manner. To address this, the New Zealand Law Commission recommended that all general law relating to search and surveillance be brought together in a single generic statute to provide certainty, consistency and coherence. The Search and Surveillance Bill 2009 was introduced to Parliament in July 2009, responds to this call and implements the government’s intention to establish a single statutory regime for search and surveillance in New Zealand. This paper assesses how the Search and Surveillance Bill 2009 proposes to regulate surveillance activities, with respect to how it balances ensuring law enforcement officers can utilise technology more effectively in an investigation, whilst at the same time protecting the rights of citizens.