9 December 2024 

There have been no privacy breaches from the Firearms Registry in its 17 months of continuous operation, Te Tari Pūreke - Firearms Safety Authority have confirmed today.

Annual reporting by Police on security and privacy related issues shows an increase in reported privacy incidents across Police, and Police identified the Firearms Registry as one of several factors behind that increased reported activity.

Te Tari Pūreke Executive Director, Angela Brazier, says this requires clarification, as none of the events Te Tari Pūreke has reported related to the Registry resulted in an actual privacy breach. 

Rather, the firearms regulator says it is meticulously logging Registry events where any irregularities had been spotted and addressed by staff before they impacted anyone’s privacy. It did this as part of its overall approach to setting rigorous privacy standards, and it had a mandatory approach to reporting of such matters.

Ms Brazier gave the example of an email being sent to an incorrectly typed email address and bouncing back. This would be logged as an event in its incident register because it was theoretically possible the mis-typed address could have been used by someone else, even though Te Tari Pūreke had evidence the email was not received by any other party. 

“By logging these events, we can then look at them and see if we need to introduce any new safeguards,” says Ms Brazier. “They also become valuable teaching tools for our people, to be aware of any pitfalls in how people are using the system.

“We have set the bar high around the Registry system, because licence holders need to be sure we are looking after their information. Licence holders will be pleased to know that we have not had a single privacy breach stemming from the Firearms Registry.”

ENDS.