WELLINGTON: Powers that would require a person to provide a password or access to their electronic device will be useless if their material is instead stored online, Customs Minister Nicky Wagner admits.
However, Ms Wagner insists such a change to legislation is necessary and will still enable Customs to catch people with illegal material.
Customs’ preferred option is to require passwords for electronic devices without meeting a threshold, such as suspicion of criminal activity.
Ms Wagner has indicated a “two-tiered” approach could be taken with some sort of threshold met before a password was required.
She would not say what that could mean for travellers.
“We are premature to be able to say where we have landed … We want to manage it in the least intrusive way, but we need to catch the baddies.”
Critics of the proposal, including the NZ Council for Civil Liberties, have cited what they see as serious workability issues around the proposed change to require passwords, including the fact a person can have documents or files in cloud storage, meaning they will not be kept on an electronic device.
“Yes, you can say, ‘Well, you can put it in the cloud.’ And if they had any sense that’s what they would do. But actually, we catch [people with illegal material on devices]. It is still necessary,” Ms Wagner said.
