Police have set new rules for officers when photographing youth after it was revealed some were photographing young Māori unlawfully.
Two reviews are currently underway into the practice. One is by the police themselves and other is jointly being done by the Independent Police Conduct Authority and Privacy Commissioner.
The results are expected to be released this month, but 1News can reveal officers have now been told young people can only be photographed if they’ve been arrested or served with a summons.
Youth photographs must also be taken on official cameras or by official photographers, and all youth photographs currently held on police-issued mobile devices must be deleted.
Three years ago, several young Māori in Masterton were photographed by police despite not having committed any crime.
John James Carberry’s nephew, who was just 14 at the time, was among them.
“It was the daytime actually when he was approached, and he was walking from our end of town across to Elizabeth Park. Basically, he was approached by police, asked for his name and address and then they took his photograph.”
Police have acknowledged that at least three youths in the town were photographed unlawfully.
“The tragedy of these types of processes and protocols by the New Zealand Police is that they're treating Māori youth as criminals while they're still youth,’ Carberry said.
The new rules follow media reports of the Masterton cases and others around the country.
Waikato University criminology lecturer, Dr Juan Tauri, told 1News he is satisfied with the changes.
“It’s an affirmation of our concerns, but secondly an affirmation of the rights of young people to move around freely without being harassed. Because it is harassment, when you have done nothing wrong and there's no evidence of any wrongdoing, to be stopped."
Police had been using the mobile application OnDuty to send the young peoples’ photographs to a national database.
Anything considered useful intelligence is logged there and can be used for crime solving.
“I’m sure that the information might possibly be useful for any future investigation — well, too bad. You can’t just wholesale criminalise a whole community of young people, particularly whether they be Māori or otherwise,” Tauri said.
Carberry said he is happy police are now sticking to the law.
“The problem was the police breaching the law. So now if they have policies that require their officers to act in accordance with the law, then that's progress.”
Police were unavailable for an interview.
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