New Zealand, New Zealand (national)
New Zealand Police
ABIS 2 retrospective facial recognition against the police image database
OperationalJournalismPAI-38722281
- Body
- New Zealand Police
- Country
- New Zealand
- Area
- New Zealand (national)
- Technology
- ABIS 2 retrospective facial recognition against the police image database
- Supplier
- Not stated in the source
- Status
- Operational
In routine use by the named body, on the evidence of a public source. - Stage
- In use now
- Since
- Not known
- Legal basis
- Not stated in the source
- Oversight
- Police use of Facial Recognition Technology policy, published October 2025. Independent review by Dr Nessa Lynch and Dr Andrew Chen, which made ten recommendations Police say they are responding to. Expert Panel on Emergent Technologies and the Algorithm Charter.
- Evidence
- Journalism
Named reporting by a reputable outlet - Source
- RNZ
- Last checked
- Record code
PAI-38722281
Notes
Established by two sources read in this run. RNZ, 14 September 2024, reporting a Police response under the Official Information Act: the Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS 2) was used 89 times between 21 March 2022 and 3 September 2024, and Police said none of these searches involved 'live' searches - all were retrospective searches to identify images of suspects. RNZ reports that Police adopted their first facial recognition policy in August 2024, restricting live use to rare situations involving immediate risk to life. Separately, New Zealand Police's own facial recognition technology page confirms a published FRT policy, an independent expert review by Dr Nessa Lynch and Dr Andrew Chen covering current and future uses, ten recommendations, and that Police hold 'planned and unused capability'. The Police Manual chapter page dates the current FRT policy document to October 2025.
Status is operational because Police's own OIA response confirms searches actually run. It is explicitly retrospective: no live or real-time facial recognition deployment is established, and Police say none has occurred.
Fields left out and why. 'vendor' is omitted. RNZ names Dataworks Plus as the supplier of the ABIS 2 upgrade, described as costing about 20 million dollars five years earlier, but that rests on one article; searching also surfaced NEC in connection with New Zealand Police biometrics, which appears to relate to the separate fingerprint AFIS rather than to ABIS. Rather than risk conflating two systems, the supplier is recorded here in the notes and attributed to RNZ instead of being asserted as a field. 'since' is omitted: 21 March 2022 is the start of the period the OIA response covers, not an established start date for the system, and RNZ reporting from 2020 indicates ABIS work was already under way. 'legalBasis' is omitted: no statute was established by any page read.
Other systems used by New Zealand Police
| Deployment | Country | Supplier | Since | Status | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| New Zealand PoliceAutomatic number plate recognition, including data from third-party ANPR networks | New ZealandNew Zealand (national) | Auror; SaferCities (VGRID) | — | Operational | |
| New Zealand PoliceClearview AI facial recognition | New ZealandNew Zealand (national) | — | 2020 | Discontinued |