Police say sensitive details of firearms licence holders found on a hand-written list did not come from their records.
An investigation has been launched after the contact details of about 20 firearms licence holders from two different police districts were uncovered during a trespass incident at a Wellington property last week.
Those on the list all seem to have the same type of gun licences.
Authorities are contacting them and their gun clubs.
Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
Te Tari Pūreke - the Firearms Safety Authority director of operations Superintendent Richard Wilson told Checkpoint all checks of their systems showed no one police officer or staff member had accessed records of all the people on the list, so it was believed it could not have come from police.
"That was one of the initial inquiries ... was to track and look for the source of this list ... because we want to ensure that we keep licence holders details secure. The list could come from a range of different sources, and that's a real focus for this investigation.
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"There's no legitimate reason for someone to have such a list ... we want to know why this list is in existence.
"Police are taking this pretty seriously ... and we're following some pretty strong lines of inquiry now."
The list was made up of names and addresses and was found at a property where a trespass incident unfolded.
Wilson said the property was not linked to any of the names on the list, it was not found at the property of a licenced firearms owner, and the property was not connected to a gang.
He said he could not reveal the common link between the people listed, or whether they held restricted weapons, as that was a key sensitive area in the investigation.
However none of the people on the list had reported being targeted by any crimes.
"We know it's round about - give or take - about two years old, so it is a historic list. It's been around long before the registry so it doesn't relate to the register ... Some of it dates back as far as seven years ago ... so it's an old list," Wilson said.
The people on the list were "concerned and upset", he said.
"We want to identify where it's come from and work with the firearms community to do whatever we can. Any time when licence holders details are found in these types of circumstances by police we take that matter very seriously."
Wilson did not agree with criticism of the firearms register, that it could create a 'shopping lists' of places to steal guns from, and said security was high and licence-holders' details were well protected.
"We hear the concerns of the firearms community around the gun register and we take people's information - those licence holders that have their information in that register - very seriously, and we make that a paramount consideration with everything we do in our operations."