'CCTV is ubiquitous' - Police cleared to tap into private cameras

Police have been given the legal clearance to continue tapping into private cameras more than 200,000 times a year for evidence.

In newly released rulings, judges knocked back several legal challenges that had argued that it should be inadmissible to rely on the number-plate-identifying cameras.

One judge said: "Whilst we might all feel uncomfortable by the idea of being watched, the reality of life today is that CCTV is ubiquitous."

Plugging in CCTV cameras to ANPR - a high-tech platform for automated number plate recognition - was just a souped-up version of something that people did not question police using.

"The defence is concerned that the ANPR function of the Auror platform is a 'powerful tool' readily available to the police that effectively allows police to 'spy on' private citizens," Judge Belinda Sellars said.

But Auror did "nothing more than facilitate" the police's access and there was no invasion of privacy, for vehicles and people in public spaces, she said.

Records show officers tap more 600 times a day into the private company Auror's platform that hosts camera stills and video - amounting 220,000 times last year.

Between 5000 and 10,000 cameras around the country connect to Auror and one other ANPR platform, mostly to combat shoplifting and retail crime.

The numbers have been ramping up since 2015, prompting the Public Defence Service (PDS) and other lawyers to launch the challenges, arguing police have slipped into mass surveillance.

Police also use Auror to search for people's images, and can ask it to look for things such as tattoos.

The newly-issued district court rulings showed defence lawyers argued that using ANPR evidence amounted to a search that police needed a production order or warrant for.

A key argument was that ANPR gathered personally identifiable information, but one of the new rulings stated: "There is no privacy interest in the ANPR data."

Judge Sellar oversaw one hearing at Auckland that covered four criminal cases, and a fifth challenge to ANPR was heard at Waitakere, covering people charged with arson, burglary, aggravated robbery and driving while disqualified or suspended.

"In each of these cases it is the use of that [ANPR] function that has led to evidence that is a significant plank of the prosecution case against each defendant," Judge Sellars wrote.

Appeals have been filed in one of the two PDS cases and at least one of the others.

Auror markets itself as a partner of the police in New Zealand, the UK, Australia and the US.

The Mid Atlantic Organized Retail Crime Alliance (MAORCA) in the US describes itself as "Powered by Auror", and states: "You can follow specific people, vehicles, events, or stores to be alerted about any activity that needs your attention."

Thousands of local officers have access to Auror through their PC or smartphones, with police paying a small annual fee.

The court rulings provide a concise guide to how police are using it. An officer on Auror chooses from one of nine categories of crime, ranging from "homicide" to "volume crime" and "others", then confirms this is for an investigation, prevention or detection of a crime, before starting to search.

"The Auror platform will automatically provide to the officer a list of occasions over the past 60 days where the number plate has been sighted," the ruling said.

"That list will contain the location of the retailer, the date and time of the sighting and a thumbnail image of the vehicle."

The officer could then ask the retailer for the CCTV footage off Auror, or if there was video, get a five-minute-long clip.

The defence argued this constituted tracking a person, which police would need a surveillance device warrant for.

In one of the five cases, a search turned up 39 detections of a licence plate in Auckland over the 60-day span.

But both courts rejected that.

"'We all know that we are likely to be recorded by CCTV footage in public spaces to assist with crime prevention and detection," Judge Sellars said.

"I accept that most people are unlikely to know about police accessibility to the Auror platform and the 60-day retention of data accessible via that platform, however, I do not accept that because this data might effectively amount to a police searchable 60-day log of a vehicle's movements, that the nature of the information therefore becomes personal and confidential."

In the other ruling, Judge Pippa Sinclair said: "There can be no reasonable expectation of privacy in relation to a registration plate.

"A request for information which captures a person in a public space cannot constitute a search."

Once the search argument was rejected, the other arguments fell apart.

Several earlier similar challenges at the district court in Christchurch have also failed.

One of those was sent to the Court of Appeal, which sent it back to the district court, saying: "Proper consideration of the new arguments requires more extensive evidence about the Auror system and its use by the police than has been presented."

But Judge Sellars' ruling stated that "Auror does not hold information on the number of cameras contributing to the platform and declined to provide a list of all customers and locations on the basis of commercial sensitivity", but it was clear their use was "extensive".

The Auckland-based Auror said on its website that it "services over 80 percent of the retail enterprise market in New Zealand".

Police told RNZ they acknowledged that ANPR evidence had been ruled admissible in this instance, as it had in every other Court decision which has looked at the issue.

"The Court's decision notes the privacy controls police has in place around accessing Auror and ANPR data, but also that this technology is a vital tool for solving crime and preventing victimisation," they said on Wednesday.

"The public expects police to use new technologies sensibly to solve crime and this ruling enables us to continue our current use of ANPR with confidence that our process is robust."