The scope of MBIE's investigative arm MI has been revealed in documents obtained under the Official Information Act. File photo. Photo: RNZ / Dom Thomas
An automated register of false personas to use on social media platforms is being set up by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE).
The ministry uses the fake accounts to catch the likes of immigration fraudsters and migrant exploiters, but has not been able to keep tight track of that use under a manual system.
The personas were used about 30 times a month in 2020/21. RNZ is seeking updated figures.
Documents obtained under the Official Information Act show MBIE's investigative arm MI had to seek an exemption to keep renewing the aliases, while it brings in the automated system to improve accountabilty. It has an exemption until December.
"The register will record access... once this has been developed, all associated uses of a person will be registered," said an internal report in January.
Recent research into a dozen agencies found only MBIE and the police were definitely using false personas to connect directly with people online. At some other agencies, it was not so clear.
The new system would be "more streamlined and easier to use. The register is an accountability tool, and can be used for assurance purposes", the ministry told RNZ on Monday.
The OIA documents also show MI was questioned by three watchdog agencies about using Israeli-US company Cobwebs to scour social media.
It said it only did this to deter boatpeople smugglers.
The OIA for the first time shows what MI - one of the newest arms of the national security octopus - is doing.
It handles about 50,000 immigration referrals and allegations a year, while focusing its reporting heavily on refugees and their protection - 473 "products".
A 2023 outputs report showed lot less "product" on migrant exploitation (81) and immigration fraud (35).
Twenty had to do with mass maritime arrivals and 101 with "national security". MI even produced "classified" national security reports, evenh it is not legally part of the national Intelligence community and not subject to the same external oversight.
The unit recently expanded across the ministry. Its 100 staff and a $11m budget escaped the cuts at other parts of MBIE under the public sector savings drive, the response showed.
The OIA showed it had an agreement with the Security Intelligence Service (SIS) to share classified information, but no details were given.
Cobwebs and watchdogs
The new OIA showed three watchdog agencies met with the chief executive of the ministry and its intelligence head over their use of Cobwebs, after RNZ revealed its use in 2022.
The ministry signed up in 2020 for Cobwebs - set up by ex-Israeli Defence Force operatives and now owned by a US company - and began using it in April 2022.
The contract expired in April 2024 and it is looking for a replacement.
The deputy privacy commissioner, the chief ombudsman and the inspector-general of Intelligence and security quizzed the ministry bosses in late 2022 and late 2023.
After two of the meetings in October, they told staff that action was needed "ASAP" to improve trust and confidence, emails in the OIA said.
The ministry blanked out just what those actions were, telling RNZ it was out of scope.
"It's important to note also that there will be ongoing work to continue to build out a broader assurance framework for intelligence activities," the email said.
The ministry said the ombudsman had not expressed any concerns about Cobwebs or its intelligence gathering generally.
The OIA quoted the ministry's head of intelligence, saying Cobwebs was the most adaptable part of intelligence collections, "due to the amount of technological change and shifting calculations of 'social licence'."
Notes from December said "artificial intelligence" would be on the agenda in 2024, and said MI was checking out how good its information sources were.
The OIA contained a briefing to Immigration Minister Erica Stanford, charting how the ministry withheld information from the public, then gradually released some, eventually admitting to RNZ that Cobwebs was bought to combat mass arrivals of asylumseekers by boat.
The OIA also showed the tools were used in about 20 cases from 2022-24.
"Cobwebs... picks up anything that is publicly available," an oversight report said.
The company boasts online about also being able to search the Dark Web, and the ministry's business case required it to access the encrypted Whatsapp platform.
Cobweb was in use for a year before MBIE decided all uses had to be approved by the head of intelligence.
There was also concern about reviews done by insiders, the OIA showed.
The Muslim community has suggested minority communities were most vulnerable to misguided social media searches, and that MI's operations should get as much outside scrutiny as the actual spy agencies routinely did.
The latest internal audit of Cobwebs from April-October last year covered 11 cases, "all of which were identified as compliant with Cobwebs operating procedures and legislative requirements".
One in July included a name search on a "known human smuggler for the Mass Arrivals team" and another in June was about "irregular migration actor intent", but other files were closed with no activity.
In December 2023, MI got a year-long exemption to keep "renewing false personas".