Privacy and on-board cameras

Before any cameras can be installed, our installers are required to develop a vessel installation plan that has to be agreed with the vessel owner. This plan confirms the camera locations and each camera’s field of view for observing fishing activity.

As part of the installation, the cameras are also connected to a real-time display monitor in the wheelhouse. This is a display screen only and doesn’t allow people to rewind or interact with the footage in any other way. It simply provides a real-time, live-stream display of what each camera sees.

As part of the installation, vessels will be provided with an onboarding kit, providing skippers and crew with operational guidance and reference photos for the cameras.

Before a vessel departs port, the operator needs to conduct a pre-departure check (ensuring the camera system is on, recording mode is activated, and images are showing on the monitor).

All fishing activity captured by the cameras is encrypted and stored securely on the vessel hard drive. This is uploaded to the cloud over a dedicated 4G network.

The cloud-based system then applies any necessary privacy protections. The privacy-protected file is used by MPI for review purposes.

Once relevant footage related to fishing events has been identified and stored, privacy-protected, and available for selected review, the following controls come into effect:

• All footage is matched to the electronic reporting data (under the Fisheries (Reporting) Regulations 2017) provided by the vessel – this provides another mechanism to ensure only footage relating to fishing activity is reviewed.
• MPI will review a selection of footage based on a mix of random-selection and targeted risk-based factors (such as risk posed to protected species, analysis of ER/GPR data, and intelligence received.
• There are a number of protocols in place to prevent any unauthorised footage access. Every instance of access to footage will have its own audit trail, recording the time, date, footage accessed, and business reason why it was accessed. In addition, reviewers are not able to choose which footage is selected for their review.

Sometimes we need to share information to fulfil obligations of government accountability and transparency, and to uphold the law. Any information sharing is done in line with the:

• Official Information Act 1982 (OIA)
• Privacy Act 1993
• Fisheries Act 1996.

All requests for information are considered case by case. Information would normally be withheld under the OIA or the Privacy Act where it’s necessary to:

• protect the privacy of a person or people
• prevent the release of a trade secret or avoid prejudicing the commercial position of a person or company
• ensure the information continues to be provided in the future.

Any information will only be shared with other government agencies for limited and specific purposes – such as:

• law enforcement
• conservation
• health and safety
• maritime safety
• compliance
• employment conditions.

When sharing information, we will in most cases not release the full camera footage. Providing a written summary or still images will be preferred. Where we need to share footage or still images, these will be edited to protect personal and commercial identities by obscuring identifying features as appropriate.

Access to view footage or images can also be limited to government premises, rather than through providing copies of files.

Under the Privacy Act, anybody can ask us to access whatever information we hold about them. A person can also ask us to correct any information about them if they consider it is inaccurate, misleading, incomplete, or out-of-date.

We recognise there is significant potential value in being able to share footage with fishers and industry bodies and for fishers to use the footage to help "tell the story" of their catch. We are aware of this need and plan to work on this with industry during 2023. This work includes developing the technical solution to enable fisher access (with appropriate security measures) and a full assessment of the legal and privacy aspects.

Guidelines for the Release of Fisheries Information [PDF, 712 KB]

Once footage is uploaded to the cloud, all previous footage on the vessel's hard drive is eventually over-written as new footage is collected.

We are currently developing the policies that will determine how long footage is stored in the cloud and for what purpose footage may be retained beyond initial review.

We will make the retention policy for the wider rollout of cameras available when it's finalised.

If for any reason there is a problem with the operation of the on-board cameras, the skipper/vessel owner will have access to a freephone number as a single point of contact for support request. This number is staffed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Fishers can use this number to log any issues identified prior to departure or that occur at sea. The helpdesk staff will work with them urgently to resolve any issues and minimise any potential disruption to fishing activities.

If there is a system issue while at sea, as long as this is reported as soon as practicable, the vessel will be able to complete its current trip before returning to port.

Fishers can request access to whatever information we hold about them under the Privacy Act by emailing privacyrequests@mpi.govt.nz.

We recognise there is significant potential value in being able to share footage with fishers and industry bodies and for fishers to use the footage to help "tell the story" of their catch. We are aware of this need and plan to work on this with industry once the system goes live. This work will includes developing the technical solution to enable fisher access (with appropriate security measures) and a full assessment of the legal and privacy aspects. The details of the technical solution developed will determine how and where fishers will be able to access footage of their own vessels.