A contested plan to hand police wider powers to gather images, sound and biometric data has cleared a key hurdle in Parliament, with the justice select committee recommending by majority that the Policing Amendment Bill be passed. Labour and the Greens stayed opposed, and the government has agreed to build extra privacy safeguards into the law and to delay the switch-on so police have time to get ready.
The committee reported back on 9 July 2026, according to RNZ. The bill has two main parts. The first restores and clarifies the ability of officers to collect visual images, sounds and biometric information in the course of their work. The second lets police close off an area ahead of expected public disorder and move people on, arrest them or issue fines inside that zone. Both parts have drawn criticism since the bill was introduced earlier this year, and the report-back has not settled the argument so much as narrowed it.
Under the changes the committee has proposed, the bill would make clear that police remain fully subject to the Privacy Act. That means the personal information gathered under the new powers would still be governed by the Act’s information privacy principles, rather than sitting outside them. The committee also recommended that officers could not make a recording in situations where a surveillance device warrant would normally be required, closing off a path that critics feared could be used to sidestep the courts. On top of that, the committee wants the Minister of Police to commission an independent statutory review of the law three years after it takes effect.
The other significant move is timing. Rather than switching the new rules on a month after the bill passes, the government has agreed to a six month lead-in. Officials told the committee police needed the extra time to test, update and refine their operational guidance, make the necessary IT changes and train staff, as well as to consult the Privacy Commissioner. For a police force that has struggled at times to match new powers with the systems to use them properly, a longer runway is a practical concession as much as a political one.
Police Minister Mark Mitchell has argued throughout that the fears about the bill are overstated. He has said the legislation will not hand police extra powers that could be construed as enabling mass surveillance of the public, framing the bill as tidying up and restoring authority that officers were understood to already have rather than creating something new. The government’s position is that clear rules, backed by the Privacy Act and an independent review, give the public protection while letting police do their job.
The opposition parties are not convinced. Labour’s justice spokesperson Camilla Belich told the House the party did not want a situation where New Zealand ended up with, in her words, an Orwellian society of mass surveillance, where there was unreasonable collection of personal data that was then in some instances used to charge people, and she argued there was still not enough detail in the bill to assure Parliament that would not happen. The Greens went further, saying the bill enables over-surveillance of ordinary people by allowing police to shirk privacy rights and common law around collecting photographs, audio and biometric data of civilians.
Outside groups have raised similar concerns. The lobby group Pillar NZ said it was disappointed that key terms such as intelligence purpose were still left undefined in the bill, which it warned could leave the scope of the powers unclear in practice. Legal commentators have made the point that broad, loosely worded powers tend to be read expansively over time, and that the safeguards added at select committee, while welcome, do not remove the underlying breadth of what officers would be allowed to collect. The New Zealand Law Society has previously warned that the public order provisions could be used to shut down lawful protest, a concern the report-back does not fully answer.
The bill now returns to the House for its remaining stages, where the coalition’s numbers mean it is very likely to pass despite the objections from Labour and the Greens. The real contest from here is less about whether the law goes through and more about how tightly it is drawn, how police interpret the powers once they have them, and whether the three year review picks up any overreach before it becomes entrenched. The delay to implementation also means the practical effect of the law will land well after this year’s general election, putting the next Parliament in charge of watching how it works.
Policing and surveillance sit alongside cost of living and health near the top of what voters say they care about heading into the 2026 campaign. If you want to see how your own priorities line up with where the parties stand, you can work through our voting tool before you cast your ballot.
What do you make of the changes to the police powers bill, and do the new privacy safeguards go far enough. Share your thoughts in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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