NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Herald NOW
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
  • Herald NOW
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Politics
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Herald NOW
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / New Zealand

Police consider using US taser maker to capture and store sensitive criminal data

NZ Herald
16 Oct, 2022 08:14 PM5 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

Focus Morning Bulletin: 17 October, 2022
The price of diesel continues to rise, more kids hungry as school returns and thieves hit South Auckland foodbank in the latest NZ Herald headlines. Video / NZ Herald ...
Video Player is loading.
Current Time 0:00
/
Duration 0:00
Loaded: 0%
0:00
Stream Type LIVE
Remaining Time -0:00
 
1x
    • Chapters
    • descriptions off, selected
    • captions settings, opens captions settings dialog
    • captions off, selected

      This is a modal window.

      Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window.

      Text
      Text Background
      Caption Area Background
      Font Size
      Text Edge Style
      Font Family

      End of dialog window.

      This is a modal window. This modal can be closed by pressing the Escape key or activating the close button.

      Autoplay in
      3
      Disable Autoplay
      Cancel Video
      The price of diesel continues to rise, more kids hungry as school returns and thieves hit South Auckland foodbank in the latest NZ Herald headlines. Video / NZ Herald
      NOW PLAYING • Focus Morning Bulletin: 17 October, 2022
      The price of diesel continues to rise, more kids hungry as school returns and thieves hit South Auckland foodbank in the latest NZ Herald headlines. Video / NZ Herald ...

      By Phil Pennington of RNZ

      This is the first of two stories about police working more and more with US taser-maker, Axon, to gather, analyse and store evidence, interviews and other footage offshore.

      Police are looking to a hugely profitable US taser maker for new ways to capture sensitive criminal case evidence and store it overseas.

      They are also considering getting new stun guns, and possibly body cameras, from the $9 billion Axon corporation.

      OIA documents show Axon is in the mix for storing all sorts of crime scene footage and “very sensitive” interviews, including on sex crimes, because existing systems are on their last legs.

      Advertisement
      Advertise with NZME.
      Advertisement
      Advertise with NZME.

      In a 2020 report, police said: “The expectation ... [is] that all of our electronic interviewing will transition to evidence.com over the next 18 months - two years.”

      Axon’s evidence.com storage system has an online sign-in page featuring a big ad for the latest number-plate-spotting camera.

      Police are refusing to disclose key information about their plans, such as the cost and the contract.

      Advertisement
      Advertise with NZME.

      Their deepening partnership with the US firm has gone largely unpublicised and without public input, except from some lawyers.

      Axon’s share price has shot up 400 per cent in five years as it becomes increasingly embedded in global law enforcement. It has almost one million body cams in use by US police.

      Defence lawyers in Auckland and Wellington have complained they must sign up to Axon’s terms, and come under US jurisdiction, to access evidence.

      They forced through a change in terms and conditions in 2019 - RNZ has contacted the Auckland barrister behind this but she declined to talk.

      Axon has courted controversy in the US over wanting to put tasers on drones.

      In this country, it has courted senior police: Six of them have been on all-expenses-paid by Axon trips to the US, and one to Australia, since 2016, the OIA shows.

      The 132-page OIA response shows New Zealand is following a similar track to abroad, where Axon commonly bundles up tasers with body cameras along with data storage to do discount deals, for instance in Margate, US.

      In New Zealand, Axon sells police the hardware, licences them the software, then leases them the cloud storage.

      “Storage ... is a key logistical issue,” said a 2021 review into tasers-with-cameras versus tasers with and body cams, released here for the first time.

      The review said police would have to tread very carefully if they buy their new tasers and separate body cams.

      Advertisement
      Advertise with NZME.

      In the US in 2017, Axon offered a free bodycam for “every police officer” - so long as they signed up for cloud storage.

      The NZ Police Association noted a year ago that some US departments removed the body cams because of the rising data storage costs. Baltimore’s storage bill rose by four times between 2016 and 2020, to $50m.

      Here, Axon offered police the free use of another system, Axon Citizen.

      This lets the public send in videos of attacks or other crimes, so they can be sent on to frontline officers or used as evidence. Queensland and Tasmania are keen on it.

      The firm also recently loaned police an electronic “interview room” or unit and demonstrated it to recruits at the police college in Wellington.

      Police trialled Axon Citizen inconclusively in 2018. Twelve people sent them photos or videos; in just one case they proved it helped apprehend a dodgy driver.

      Advertisement
      Advertise with NZME.

      A second trial failed to go ahead in May this year.

      RNZ asked the police for their emails with Axon about the free Citizen deal, but they did not release them.

      Police first used Axon back in 2007. For a decade, police held the taser footage in-house, and Axon (then Taser International) remotely managed it.

      But in 2017, after a self-described “brief” privacy impact assessment that canvassed just eight police staff, police opted to begin sending the taser footage to Axon’s cloud storage in Canberra.

      “The project will lessen existing privacy risks,” the privacy assessment said.

      Video of family harm cases - injuries, scenes and interviews - was added en masse in 2020, the documents show.

      Advertisement
      Advertise with NZME.

      Court registrars now also use the evidence.com storage, from Canberra servers, to access police evidence files.

      By contrast, Axon’s US deals often contain guarantees all content will only be stored within the United States.

      New Zealand police said some of the evidence held by Axon was about or from children.

      “There are no additional controls around data storage for persons under 18 years” over and above regular controls, they told RNZ.

      All the evidence stored by Axon was controlled and owned by the police, and Axon had “limited” access or editing of it, they said.

      What if Axon goes bust? Police said that was covered in their Service Agreement - which they withheld from RNZ.

      Advertisement
      Advertise with NZME.

      Axon’s routine terms state it can terminate its service at any time, and clients get 90 days to remove their data.

      The OIA documents do not mention number-plate cameras, but police are looking at putting more of these in patrol cars.

      Several recent US police-Axon deals show body cams can cost about $1000 each. Individual licences to use basic evidence.com cost about $300 each, and ‘Pro’ licences about $800 each.

      Read More

      • Police 'wrong' to block man's security licence, judge ...
      • Security company calls for change in the approach to ...
      • Police back proposal for extra security...
      • Police hail response to security pictures...

      No such cost details are forthcoming from New Zealand police, except to say, “unlimited data storage is included in the overall fee.”

      Also, they said they pay for both basic and pro evidence.com licences, though not how many.

      Police also withheld the reports they said they have done into:

      Advertisement
      Advertise with NZME.
      • replacing their investigative interviewing suites - this covers where child and sexual assault victim interviews are done, and those with suspects and witnesses;
      • replacing their Axon TaserX2s - these have built-in cameras which are causing problems;
      • and using Axon to store their masses of forensic imaging.

      Police said it would be commercially prejudicial, and compromise-free and frank discussion among officials, to tell the public more.

      Save

        Share this article

      Latest from New Zealand

      Politics

      ‘Don't want war’: Jackson on the Labour-Te Pati Māori relationship

      08 Jun 01:00 AM
      Premium
      New Zealand

      Hastings Boys' High score 35 unanswered points to come back to beat arch rivals

      08 Jun 12:01 AM
      New Zealand|crimeUpdated

      Watch: Man who drove wrong way on motorway three times appeals convictions

      08 Jun 12:00 AM

      Why Cambridge is the new home of future-focused design

      sponsored
      Advertisement
      Advertise with NZME.
      Recommended for you
      ‘Don't want war’: Jackson on the Labour-Te Pati Māori relationship
      Politics

      ‘Don't want war’: Jackson on the Labour-Te Pati Māori relationship

      08 Jun 01:00 AM
      Colombian presidential candidate shot and wounded - reports
      World

      Colombian presidential candidate shot and wounded - reports

      08 Jun 12:20 AM
      Tesla loses $249b as Musk-Trump feud erupts, shaking business empire
      World

      Tesla loses $249b as Musk-Trump feud erupts, shaking business empire

      08 Jun 12:08 AM
      Where top NZ chefs go for the best winter dining spots
      Travel

      Where top NZ chefs go for the best winter dining spots

      08 Jun 12:00 AM
      The big return: Why the Sunday roast is back in fashion
      Lifestyle

      The big return: Why the Sunday roast is back in fashion

      08 Jun 12:00 AM

      Latest from New Zealand

      ‘Don't want war’: Jackson on the Labour-Te Pati Māori relationship

      ‘Don't want war’: Jackson on the Labour-Te Pati Māori relationship

      08 Jun 01:00 AM

      The Labour MP believes he may have upset Te Pati Māori.

      Premium
      Hastings Boys' High score 35 unanswered points to come back to beat arch rivals

      Hastings Boys' High score 35 unanswered points to come back to beat arch rivals

      08 Jun 12:01 AM
      Watch: Man who drove wrong way on motorway three times appeals convictions

      Watch: Man who drove wrong way on motorway three times appeals convictions

      08 Jun 12:00 AM
      Christchurch pornographer pleads guilty to sex trafficking

      Christchurch pornographer pleads guilty to sex trafficking

      07 Jun 11:45 PM
      Clean water fuelling Pacific futures
      sponsored

      Clean water fuelling Pacific futures

      NZ Herald
      • About NZ Herald
      • Meet the journalists
      • Newsletters
      • Classifieds
      • Help & support
      • Contact us
      • House rules
      • Privacy Policy
      • Terms of use
      • Competition terms & conditions
      • Our use of AI
      Subscriber Services
      • NZ Herald e-editions
      • Daily puzzles & quizzes
      • Manage your digital subscription
      • Manage your print subscription
      • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
      • Subscribe to Herald Premium
      • Gift a subscription
      • Subscriber FAQs
      • Subscription terms & conditions
      • Promotions and subscriber benefits
      NZME Network
      • The New Zealand Herald
      • The Northland Age
      • The Northern Advocate
      • Waikato Herald
      • Bay of Plenty Times
      • Rotorua Daily Post
      • Hawke's Bay Today
      • Whanganui Chronicle
      • Viva
      • NZ Listener
      • What the Actual
      • Newstalk ZB
      • BusinessDesk
      • OneRoof
      • Driven CarGuide
      • iHeart Radio
      • Restaurant Hub
      NZME
      • About NZME
      • NZME careers
      • Advertise with NZME
      • Digital self-service advertising
      • Book your classified ad
      • Photo sales
      • NZME Events
      • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
      TOP
      search by queryly Advanced Search