INZ dumps deportation tool
WELLINGTON: Immigration New Zealand (INZ) has scrapped data and predictive modelling work it did to prioritise deportations.
The Privacy Commissioner and Human Rights Commission said they would work with the agency if it developed technology or a similar initiative to the datamodelling in the future.
Documents obtained under the Official Information Act show INZ set up a pilot scheme which targeted Indian students for compliance action, while the other dealt with all nationalities and visa types.
One of the released documents stated: ‘‘The data is currently being used to quantify and prioritise harm that has occurred in order to inform prioritisation of compliance activities.
‘‘The ambition is to extend the harm model into a predictive model that can be used to predict the likelihood of longterm harm to NZ Inc based on demographics and individual harm.
‘‘This matrix currently assigns values based on: whether the offending is INZ related, the gravity and date of the offending, the availability of the information source, whether there is a suspect, their history with INZ, reputational risk to INZ, whether the suspect is Indian (the current system focus of the high harm definition) and whether there is evidence available.’’
The ‘‘harm model’’ spreadsheet shows how demographic details such as gender and age were included among the criteria.
Some of the spreadsheet and all of the recommendations in a report on the extended harm model were redacted.
The spreadsheet included profiles, the first of which is for people under investigation for serious offences.
The second is for ‘‘male with partnership application following visa application decline’’ and the third ‘‘male student with low attendance at PTE [private training establishment]. Likely to be working unlawfully’’.
Immigration lawyer Richard Small said the second and third criteria were an unstated euphemism for Indian overstayers, even though India accounted for only the fourthlargest number of overstayers.
The inclusion of Indians as one of the two trials, and a points matrix where ‘‘Indian’’ was one of the criteria to prioritise cases, were racial profiling by another name, he said.
There had always been a priority list — such as deportations for serious criminals — but the trend was towards algorithms, he said.
‘‘You can have some risk indicators if they are neutral and socially acceptable — I don’t think one that says ‘Indian’ is acceptable. I think that’s way too broad and you need to be a lot more nuanced,’’ Mr Small said. — RNZ