Locke Keith: Counter-Terrorism Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
Locke Keith: Counter-Terrorism Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
[Volume:612;Page:9369] 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 When I finished speaking earlier in the debate I was halfway through explaining my amendments and the amendments proposed by the Privacy Commissioner to the select committee. The first amendment related to the reporting procedure prior to the gaining of a warrant. 
The other thing that the Privacy Commissioner was worried about was that there was nothing in the bill that made it illegal for ordinary members of the public to track other members of the public virtually wherever they wanted. He proposed an amendment which I have listed here that does make it illegal to do that except in certain circumstances. Essentially the amendment to clause 34 to add a new section 200P states that a person commits an offence who knowingly installs uses or maintains a tracking device to determine the geographical location of a person or an object and in the case of a device to determine the location of a person without the express or implied consent of that person or to determine the location of an object without the express or implied consent of a person in lawful possession or having lawful control of that object. So that would allow for instance for taxi companies to use tracking devices. Every taxi-driver who is employed by a company like Co-op Taxis in Auckland or Wellington Combined Taxis knows that those companies have a global positioning system a tracking device. It is all done with the consent of the drivers. They know when they drive taxis that it is part of their job. So that would allow for legitimate tracking devices with consent. 
But what the Privacy Commissioner wanted to stop was the proliferation of ordinary citizens tracking other people. It can be done with very tiny micro devices these days—and they will get smaller and smaller. A person can attach it to another’s jacket and he or she can track that person for months. One can track which room in a house a person is in and all kinds of things. That invasion of privacy was what the Privacy Commissioner was trying to get at. He said there should be this general provision. He made the effort to word an amendment which I am putting forward here today. I think it is important because this section does involve privacy. 
The other provision I referred to was a police constable who is holding a search warrant for even the most minimal offence being able to force access to a person’s computer and being able to force that person to give over encryption devices and passwords. 
There were quite substantial submissions to the select committee. One was from Alex Conte a lecturer in law I think at Victoria University. 
He was very concerned. He went right through all the common law and how this was an invasion of the person’s privacy and countered their right to avoid self-incrimination. If one is forced to give someone free access to one’s computer one might incriminate oneself. He did believe that there might be an extreme category of people who are terrorists and we might need to get into their computers. He did have an amendment that allowed access to computers in that particular case. He was very worried about it as were many other members of the legal profession. 
I think it is important and people are saying it more and more in the international debate on terrorism not to get carried away and bring in all sorts of laws that seriously intrude on people’s privacy or the other edge of it to try to protect privacy more. Of course this section does not amend the Terrorism Suppression Act. It amends the Crimes Act the Summary Proceedings Act and the Misuse of Drugs Act. But it does have provisions like the two provisions that affect our privacy very much. I think we should respect the good work of the previous Privacy Commissioner Bruce Slane. He was an expert in the field. 
 I think most New Zealanders want society to be free of that sort of tracking device. People are worried that in this modern age there are systems whereby little devices can be put on someone’s person and from some distance away the person and his or her movements can be monitored. I think New Zealanders want tracking devices to be used only in particular cases—for example serious drug crimes and such things that require the police to use an array of investigative weapons.