Is your mobile company spying on you?
There has been a bit of a kerfuffle in the press recently about Carrier IQ - a piece of software that hides on your phone and reports data back to the telephone company. (More technical details here.)
We wanted to know whether New Zealand telecommunications companies are installing this sort of software on the phones they sell to us.
Telecom deny that they used anything of the sort:
No, we do not use Carrier IQ. Our devices do not come loaded with this type of software and we don’t have an agreement with Carrier IQ or any other company that implements tools like this.
Vodafone also deny using such software and make a good point about it contravening the Privacy Act:
Vodafone would never knowingly contravene the privacy act and to the best of our knowledge this software is not on any of the devices we sell.
Telstraclear have also denied it (brevity due to denial being via Twitter):
@TelstraClearNZ No, our devices do not keylog. ^TN
2 Degrees joins the rest:
No, we haven’t. The only customer information 2degrees records is for billing purposes. We don’t monitor our customers’ handset activity or request that any software to do so is installed on devices.
Thanks to @nzkarit on Twitter for his assistance with this article.
Can you photograph or video the police in New Zealand?
There has been a recent spate of people being arrested in the USA and UK for taking photos and video of the police at work. We also found anecdotal evidence of police in New Zealand exceeding their legal authority when it came to people taking photos and video of them:
"Taking photographs around Cuba Mall and a police officer approached and said 'Would you like me to break that?' indicating the camera. He was exceedingly hostile and it turned out it was because the officer thought he had been photographed by us."
"Have to wonder why they confiscate cameras and tapes then. We were told we could pick the tapes up from the station... at which point any knowledge of the tapes was denied."
The legal situation in New Zealand
Firstly, it is generally accepted that anyone can photograph or video anyone else as long as the subject wouldn't have a reasonable expectation of privacy. There are a range of exceptions, but are the police one of them?
We wrote to both the Police Commissioner and the Minister of Police and asked them "Is it against the law in New Zealand to take photos of video of the police at work?"
The Police responded first: "No, not if the photos of video of police at work are taken in a public place, or with the landowner's consent if on private property."
Judith Collins, the Minister of Police, backed up the Police's position in her response, going on to say that she saw no need to change the law and was not aware of any plans to do so.
Conclusion
It seems clear that in New Zealand the police can't stop you from documenting what they are doing. They have no power to stop you, seize your camera or force you to delete images or video.
We believe that this is a good thing and is part of having a police force that is accountable to the people they serve. The police hold most of the cards when it comes to dealing with the public, and the prospect of being recorded should provide a brake on any temptation to abuse those powers.
However one concern remains. Police training does not cover this issue and it seems that some officers feel free to make up their own powers as they go. We recommend that the NZ Police should make sure that this is included in initial and continuing training.
Finally, we remind anyone taking photos of police at incidents to make sure that you do not get in their way or you could be arrested for obstruction.
Oral submission : Search & Surveillance
Today Tech Liberty made an oral submission to the Justice & Electoral Select Committee about the Search & Surveillance Bill, following up from our written submission.
We changed some of our recommendations between the written and oral submissions, particularly around:
- Notifying people of searches or surveillance against them
- Handling targeted searching of computers
The full text of our oral submissions follows, albeit there were some wording changes in the actual presentation.
Submission: Search & Surveillance Bill
Text of our submission to the Select Committee about the Search & Surveillance Bill. Or download the PDF version.
1. General comments about the S&S Bill
While we appreciate the proposed changes to the Bill, we still hold grave concerns about the general thrust of the Bill towards increased powers for search and surveillance.
We have the following comments on some of the issues raised by the Summary Departmental Report.
Surveillance: current law
The Search and Surveillance Bill is an attempt to rewrite New Zealand's laws around search and surveillance.
One thing that has become clear in the debate around the bill is that many people are not fully aware of the existing powers that government agencies have to pry into our personal affairs. It's not uncommon for someone to decry a 'new' power in the Search and Surveillance Bill, only to be told that it is already in existing law.
This article lists, to the best of our knowledge, the current ways that the government can use to watch us. We will expand/correct it as additional knowledge comes to light.
Why did Customs seize this laptop?
[This post was prompted by contact from a person who had a laptop seized. Since original publication they have asked for their comments to be removed.]
We recently asked Customs whether they were able to do this and they replied that they could under the Customs and Excise Act (1996).
Looking for information
We'd like to find out more about what Customs are doing in this area. In particular we'd like to know what they're looking for, whether they're targeting anyone in particular, and what they do with the systems and data they seize.
Please contact us if this has happened to you or anyone you know. Please include as much detail as possible. We promise to respect your anonymity.
Search and Surveillance Act Threatens Privacy
The Search and Surveillance Bill currently under consideration by Parliament is an attempt to create a unified law for all government agencies. These powers are currently defined, differently, in over 70 different acts ranging from the Crimes Act to the Meat Board Act.
The stated intention of the bill is to "reform the law to provide a coherent, consistent and certain approach in balancing the complementary values of law enforcement and human rights" while "[providing] for the appropriate legislative powers to enable law enforcement and regulatory agencies to extract electronic information and use surveillance devices in order to investigate and combat criminal activity".
Updated: Jailing People for Remaining Silent
The new Search and Surveillance Bill includes provisions to force people who own and manage computer systems to give full access to those systems. This includes the obligation to give up passwords to enable the authorities to access encrypted information.
Of course, this assumes that the person involved actually has the password. It's quite common for someone running a system to not be able to break the encryption used by other users to secure their data. Will the courts understand that? And even if they understand that, will they believe it?