Speaker 1: Kiota.
Speaker 2: I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
Speaker 2: daily podcast.
Speaker 1: Presented by the New Zealand Herald.
Speaker 2: Securities software used widely by retail staff, as in the Spotlight.
Speaker 2: After an incident involving a former Green MP Goalriz Gutaman
Speaker 2: quick Politics last year after being caught shoplifting from boutique
Speaker 2: fashion stores, and news emerged earlier this month suggesting she
Speaker 2: had done it again at a Pack and Save supermarket.
Speaker 2: But the former MP did not steal anything and the
Speaker 2: store never reported the case to the police. Yet as
Speaker 2: the incident was logged in the aura's security system, police
Speaker 2: were able to access it and attempted to use it
Speaker 2: in the court case against gutamann.
Speaker 1: Enzed Heralden.
Speaker 2: You're writer David Fisher has been looking into the case
Speaker 2: and the scope of AURA software and joins us now
Speaker 2: on the front Page.
Speaker 1: David, can you.
Speaker 2: Give us an overview of what happened between Guaman and
Speaker 2: the staff at the Royal Oak Pack and Save last year.
Speaker 3: So on October twelve last year, the day before Gora's
Speaker 3: Garriman was due to appeal her sentence for shoplifting at
Speaker 3: the High Court, she was at the Pack and Save
Speaker 3: Supermarket in Royal Oak doing some shopping, and as she
Speaker 3: was walking about the store, she was placing items in
Speaker 3: her shopping trolley and also into a tote bag.
Speaker 4: Sitting in a shopping trolley.
Speaker 3: When I'd say tote bag, I mean one of these
Speaker 3: ubiquitous not plastic any more type bags that we will
Speaker 3: take shopping or carthouse shopping around and stop both store
Speaker 3: security she was asked to empty her bags and she
Speaker 3: did that. At that stage, she wasn't near the checkout,
Speaker 3: she hadn't approached the checkout. She was still going about
Speaker 3: doing her shopping. Security staff appear to be concerned about
Speaker 3: the manner in which she was doing her shopping and
Speaker 3: that led to them asking her to empty her bags. Now,
Speaker 3: what we know happened after that is that the security
Speaker 3: staff used a platform called Aura through which to enter
Speaker 3: details of what they considered to be a retail crime incident.
Speaker 3: What it does is it links retailers details get entered
Speaker 3: into the system of retail crime incident and it allows
Speaker 3: retailers to match incident with incident so that it improves
Speaker 3: the level of knowledge and the picture that they have
Speaker 3: across the retail space as to what crimes occurring there.
Speaker 3: They also have an option to report it to police
Speaker 3: so that it then becomes visible to police, Which is
Speaker 3: not to say that police don't have visibility across the
Speaker 3: AURA platform anyway.
Speaker 4: They do.
Speaker 3: Auras styles their partnership of New Zealand Police is one
Speaker 3: of partnership, and I have a contract between AURA and
Speaker 3: New Zealand Police that talks about how close that partnership is.
Speaker 3: It includes having New Zealand Police talk to other companies
Speaker 3: or other police forces about the benefits of the AURA platform.
Speaker 3: So it was Goras Garaman's details, including a name being
Speaker 3: entered into this crime platform, that then came to the
Speaker 3: attention of police the day after her appeal court hearing
Speaker 3: October fourteen. Police have told us there were officers going
Speaker 3: through the huge number of reports that are made from
Speaker 3: retailers and among those reports was the one that was
Speaker 3: ident find involving garment. What I understand happened at that
Speaker 3: point is that those officers or that officer that was
Speaker 3: going through the shoplifting reports then alerted the detective senior
Speaker 3: sergeant who was overseeing the inquiry into garam and shoplifting
Speaker 3: from hogh End retail stores and as a result of
Speaker 3: that officer becoming aware of it, he sought to raise
Speaker 3: it with the High Court as a matter that should
Speaker 3: be considered as part of a appeal, but he was
Speaker 3: unsuccessful in doing so. Garaman was also unsuccessful in her appeal.
Speaker 3: So those are the events that we understand took place.
Speaker 3: And as we've seen over the last week or so,
Speaker 3: this blew up again. But if chatter going around found
Speaker 3: its way out through Auckland restauranteur Leo Malloy and a
Speaker 3: bit of chat on a social media a little red
Speaker 3: blog site as well, which brought it to the public attention.
Speaker 3: And here we are a week down the track with
Speaker 3: a lot of people with a lot of questions about
Speaker 3: what AURA does. Here's the question, how much access do
Speaker 3: police have and can they look at everything or any
Speaker 3: camera anytime any shop in New Zealand that is using AURA.
Speaker 5: No, they can't, So I think you know, we aren't cameras,
Speaker 5: We're not a surveillance system. Quite simply, retailers choose to
Speaker 5: make the crimes that they witness in their stores visible
Speaker 5: to police and then it's up to police to determine
Speaker 5: how they use it information to investigate further and solve
Speaker 5: more crime. So it's a way for to provide information,
Speaker 5: including evidence like video, to police more efficiently. It's we're
Speaker 5: just modernizing what's always happened, but rather than paper files
Speaker 5: and USB sticks, we're making it digital much faster for
Speaker 5: both sides.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so she's not been charged, has she?
Speaker 2: So despite nothing really happening in this case was filed
Speaker 2: in the Aura software used by food Stuffs which owns
Speaker 2: pack and say, can you explain what Aura actually is?
Speaker 2: It's a New Zealand based company, right, that's right?
Speaker 4: Or is an incredible New Zealand success story.
Speaker 3: Actually it launched in twenty twelve with the idea that
Speaker 3: it would create a platform that would link retailers. One
Speaker 3: of its pictures that I've said, talk about or seen
Speaker 3: executives that the company talk about is that their technology
Speaker 3: removes anonymity, and it does so by logging incidents of
Speaker 3: retail crime concern and storing them in a database. It's
Speaker 3: got incredible capabilities or as network. They're always very quick
Speaker 3: to say that they don't do live facial recognition, but
Speaker 3: they do have a facial recognition capability within their system.
Speaker 4: I understand.
Speaker 3: But information is also logged about what people wear, what
Speaker 3: tattoos they might have, other distinctive characterizing features. Names can
Speaker 3: be included. One of the capabilities that AURA has is
Speaker 3: automatic number plate recognition. It will also log all of
Speaker 3: those details. So when you drive into a supermarket car park,
Speaker 3: your number plate has been captured, it can be tracked
Speaker 3: as to where it's been in other areas that also
Speaker 3: are covered by the URA network. And remember that's ninety
Speaker 3: percent or more of New Zealand retail spaces. So a
Speaker 3: very very powerful tool, and it can link through that
Speaker 3: automatic license plate recognition the individuals that are associated with
Speaker 3: that vehicle and who their accomplices might be. So you
Speaker 3: get this extraordinary picture of who the individuals are that
Speaker 3: are plaguing supermarkets or drive offs at petrol stations, or
Speaker 3: all the issues that retailers face when the criminal element
Speaker 3: decides that they able to parasite on their good work
Speaker 3: and have something for nothing.
Speaker 2: What about privacy though, fesh I see there's been some
Speaker 2: concerns over number plate scanning and privacy issues in Australia
Speaker 2: for example.
Speaker 3: Yes, concerns in Australia and concerns here too. Privacy for
Speaker 3: a system like AURA was always going to increase as
Speaker 3: it went on. The longer it goes on, the better
Speaker 3: its systems get, the more information it harvests, the more
Speaker 3: places it harvests information from, and the better it gets
Speaker 3: at matching that information, or is stated aim of taking
Speaker 3: anonymity away as a real red flag for those that
Speaker 3: do have these privacy concerns. You know, we need to
Speaker 3: remember here too that this is a network that created
Speaker 3: for retailer's purposes, but is also.
Speaker 4: Used to a huge degree by police.
Speaker 3: We know that in the past police have misused the
Speaker 3: system when we were subject to COVID lockdowns. You may
Speaker 3: recall that there was a hunt on for women that
Speaker 3: were believed to have breached the border in and headed
Speaker 3: into North and I did some reporting around that and
Speaker 3: discovered that police had invented crimes so as to access
Speaker 3: or of systems in ways that they would not have
Speaker 3: been able to so that they could track those women.
Speaker 3: We know, then, from the subsequent police audit that was
Speaker 3: done as a result of the discovery that police misused
Speaker 3: the system, that it wasn't the only time that.
Speaker 6: Police had misused the system. The guardrails that have been
Speaker 6: put in place around police using the system were all
Speaker 6: so horribly inadequate. There'd be no real privacy assessment that
Speaker 6: had been done or enacted. And that was the Australian
Speaker 6: experience as well. The Australian Federal Police had signed on
Speaker 6: and worked to exploit the system without having carried out
Speaker 6: any sort of a privacy assessment. And this is a
Speaker 6: real concern when we have a really strongly diminishing private
Speaker 6: space in the country, that we have systems and networks
Speaker 6: like this become increasingly powerful. I'd remember a conversation I
Speaker 6: had with somebody who worked for one our intelligence agencies,
Speaker 6: and that individual had said to me, with a real
Speaker 6: hunger in their voice, if only we could get access
Speaker 6: to what Google has, And they had said to me,
Speaker 6: private surveillance is something that should be a far greater
Speaker 6: concern to the public than government surveillance. Now, of course
Speaker 6: they would say that I have a view, having covered
Speaker 6: a number of intelligence agency breaches, that we should always
Speaker 6: be concerned about what the government's doing with our information.
Speaker 4: But it's a good point.
Speaker 3: Private companies have a high degree of freedom when it
Speaker 3: comes to developing and implementing these types of systems.
Speaker 4: It's an issue.
Speaker 3: Which has been picked up by the officer of the
Speaker 3: Privacy Commissioner in New Zealand. They currently have work underway
Speaker 3: on what's called a biometric code and what they mean
Speaker 3: by a biometric code is a set of rules for
Speaker 3: anyone that's gathering identifying information about an individual. That can
Speaker 3: be information is simp as having CCTV of how people walk,
Speaker 3: and if you're using how people walk as a means
Speaker 3: to track them through multiple CCTV cameras, that makes a
Speaker 3: biometric information. That's the sort of information that the Privacy
Speaker 3: Commissioner is looking at putting some pretty strict rules around.
Speaker 7: An AORA spokesperson said Australian Federal Police carried out a
Speaker 7: full privacy assessment of AURA in twenty twenty three, which
Speaker 7: gave them comfort to continue using the software. AURA is
Speaker 7: committed to empowering retailers and law enforcement to improve public
Speaker 7: safety and keep our community safe. Or are frequently engages
Speaker 7: with regulators and has done so for more than a decade.
Speaker 7: AURA will continue to work with a New Zealand Privacy commission.
Speaker 2: It sounds like this technology is what is one of
Speaker 2: those instances where our information and our likeness and the
Speaker 2: way we walk and our faces are being captured and
Speaker 2: we just have to trust in the authorities that it's
Speaker 2: not going to be used for nefarious purposes. Do you
Speaker 2: think that there are enough of those kind of balances
Speaker 2: in place for it not to fall into the wrong hands.
Speaker 3: Well, it's always difficult when you're talking about private companies
Speaker 3: because we have a degree of oversight of how government
Speaker 3: agency responds through the way that we cast our votes,
Speaker 3: the decisions that government ministers will make, and the things
Speaker 3: that government agencies will put in place, And there's a
Speaker 3: general public good.
Speaker 4: That lies underneath that.
Speaker 3: For private companies, and I'm not talking about or specifically here,
Speaker 3: companies would very much like to do things that are
Speaker 3: in the public good, but making money is what they're
Speaker 3: there for. You know, they have to return some form
Speaker 3: of benefit to their investors, and so the normal rules
Speaker 3: don't necessarily apply. There are systems in place like the
Speaker 3: Office of the Prison they commissioner to say to these needs, Hey,
Speaker 3: we have a privacy law. We'd like to run a
Speaker 3: ruler over you as to how you comply with it.
Speaker 3: But technology increases a pace. The development that happens within
Speaker 3: companies like Aura that also happens at a rapid pace,
Speaker 3: and regulators need to work really really hard to keep
Speaker 3: up with that and quite possibly need more funding, need
Speaker 3: more resource, need more.
Speaker 4: Expertise to do that.
Speaker 3: I asked the Privacy Commissioner and Police about a year ago,
Speaker 3: do you know how many cameras are connected to the
Speaker 3: AURA system?
Speaker 4: Neither of them.
Speaker 3: The police have now done a privacy assessment around their
Speaker 3: interaction with AURA, or they've had AURA do their privacy assessment.
Speaker 3: I dare say things have changed a huge amount since
Speaker 3: when that was done and where we are now to
Speaker 3: have the AURA system covering ninety percent of New Zealand
Speaker 3: retail spaces over the course of really only be going
Speaker 3: for about ten years or so, it's an incredible advance
Speaker 3: and I would argue that every incremental increase in the
Speaker 3: ability to surveil the public really gives you a new
Speaker 3: set of metrics that you need to apply to the
Speaker 3: rules that we have in place for our society. It's
Speaker 3: ninety percent here in New Zealand, fifty percent of Australian
Speaker 3: retail places covered and booming success in America's Don't get
Speaker 3: me wrong. From a startup perspective, this company has done
Speaker 3: incredibly well. Twenty twenty one, they were valued around thirty
Speaker 3: million dollars. The Australian Financial Review last year valued them
Speaker 3: around five hundred million dollars. That's a meteoric rise. And
Speaker 3: making sure that you're doing all the things that you
Speaker 3: need to do during a incredible surge of growth like
Speaker 3: that happening, that's a difficult thing for a company.
Speaker 4: To get a handle on.
Speaker 3: I'd like to see them be more directly open with
Speaker 3: the public about what they're gathering and what they're doing
Speaker 3: with it. I'd like to see a government more proactive
Speaker 3: in letting people know things like, for example, you can
Speaker 3: go to NZTA and you can say I don't want
Speaker 3: my name and address associated with my license plate for
Speaker 3: companies like Ora to have access to there's a degree
Speaker 3: of choice that the public has about how much we
Speaker 3: buy or buy out of this, but there is not
Speaker 3: much information there to make the public aware. We need
Speaker 3: far far more assertive regulation from the regulator, far more
Speaker 3: information coming out to the public, and we need Ora
Speaker 3: to be proactively more engaging with the public around this
Speaker 3: and really police, you know, police will be the ones
Speaker 3: I would think out of any agency that makes the
Speaker 3: greatest use of this technology. We need from police a
Speaker 3: huge amount of openness around how this is being used
Speaker 3: and police right from the outset of discussions that I've
Speaker 3: had that other media have had with them around their
Speaker 3: use of AURA have not been anywhere near as open
Speaker 3: as they should have been.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us, David, Thanks Chelsea.
Speaker 2: That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You
Speaker 2: can read more about today's and extensive news coverage at
Speaker 2: enzdherld dot co dot nz. The Front Page is produced
Speaker 2: by Ethan Sills and Richard Martin, who is also a
Speaker 2: sound engineer.
Speaker 1: I'm Chelsea Daniels.
Speaker 2: Subscribe to the Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you
Speaker 2: get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow for another look
Speaker 2: behind the headlines.