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Tikanga FAQs

Tikanga Māori FAQs


Why was this report commissioned?

In June 2003 the Government noted that work would be undertaken to specifically explore potential issues for Māori arising from an all-of-government approach to online authentication. Given the specialist nature of the work, and following advice given at a Hui in November 2003, an external provider was selected to progress the required work with direction from the State Services Commission.

What consultation has been undertaken with Māori and other groups?

The consultation page outlines the range of consultation that has been undertaken at each stage of the online authentication initiative.

What are the main recommendations in the report?

The report makes four broad recommendations for consideration by the State Services Commission:

1. Applicability of the E-government Strategy: that the identified issues are not specific to online authentication and should be considered by the State Services Commission in the context of the wider E-government Strategy;

2. Governance-Kaitiaki: that a proposal should be developed for wider discussion/consultation with Māori regarding governance-kaitiaki of e-government initiatives;

3. Māori cultural and social impact assessment: that a preliminary Māori Cultural and Social Impact Assessment be completed to ensure that the high level impact of e-government on Māori is understood; and

4. Alignment with Privacy Impact Assessment: in essence this recommendation is seeking recognition that the identified ‘Māori issues’ be given equal significance as the issues identified in the Privacy Impact Assessment and that the report be made publicly available.


What is the State Services Commission doing to address these recommendations?

1. Applicability to the E-government Strategy: The State Services Commission/E-Government Unit (EGU) has a large number of projects that need input from interested stakeholders. These individual projects are managed within a methodology that includes gathering of suggestions at all stages of the project; the stakeholders vary between projects, dependent on the nature of the project and the expected effect of the project on different groups within government, in the business community and individual New Zealanders.

The EGU has sought ongoing input from Māori and other stakeholders as part of the Authentication Programme and wider e-government work programme.

It is noted that there are a number of opportunities for Māori (and other stakeholder groups) to provide input into discussion around the wider set of issues identified, including:

  • the development of policy and project work being undertaken by EGU, including channel strategy, participation, SecureMail and strategic review work components
  • the Digital Strategy consultation (being led by the Ministry of Economic Development) for which a breadth of view are being sought (including social and cultural considerations).

These programmes of work will consider the matters raised in the Issues for Māori report and where appropriate establish processes to address them.

The EGU will continue to seek opportunities to provide consistency for stakeholder groups (including Māori) across the e-government programme, while ensuring that the needs of individual projects for specific inputs are met.

2. Governance - Kaitiaki: The Government's decision in May 2004 gave approval to a programme of work which included:

  • develop authentication standards to be adopted by government agencies
  • further explore the specific policy and scoping issues identified through the E-government Unit’s recent work in this area
  • enable the Office of the Privacy Commissioner to review the authentication scheme and to comment on any particular privacy concerns
  • trial some of the technical infrastructure that would be required if a centralised system for online authentication was developed (subject to Cabinet approval in October 2004).

The programme structure for this work will reflect a range of stakeholder views, including Māori, through membership on the Advisory Panel and general relationship management activities (e.g. focus session with disabled user groups).

The Authentication Programme is not yet at a stage to begin discussion of governance arrangements for an operational authentication solution. The earliest that decisions on operational governance arrangements can be made is after the completion of the Shared Keys component of Initial Implementation phase in December 2005.

The Commission’s primary interest in designing and implementing governance arrangements will be acquisition of the skills required to safeguard an all-of-government approach to authentication that will affect all New Zealanders in dealing both with the Government and with the private sector.

While there are general obligations on the Crown under the Treaty of Waitangi, the Commission does not agree that there are particular obligations arising from the e-government strategy, or through the Authentication Programme, to any greater degree than the normal run of government administration.

A set of guiding policy and implementation principles were developed and agreed by Cabinet in April 2002 . This set of principles has provided a basis for progressing with a detailed solution design (in the previous phase). It is recognised, however, that these principles will continue to be ‘tested’ for relevance (both by the Commission and by external parties). If required they may need to be amended, with Cabinet agreement, to better reflect the context as it relates to online authentication. The views of Māori will provide an input into the testing for their relevance. It is noted that the principles were reassessed as part of the previous programme phase (Phase One) and that they were determined to be valid.

3. Māori cultural and social impact assessment: The EGU will not be undertaking a Māori cultural and social impact assessment. As noted (for Recommendation One), sufficient opportunities exist for gathering input from Māori through the E-government Unit’s policy work programme and the Digital Strategy consultation process (being led by the Ministry of Economic Development).

In addition, the E-government Unit’s ongoing research programme is addressing issues around user expectation for e-government services (including the GO2003 Survey, Victoria University of Wellington research and the 'Channel Surfing' survey).

4. Alignment with privacy impact assessment: The EGU acknowledges that the report is a valid analysis of the views of some of the stakeholders interviewed by the researcher. The report was commissioned as one source of advice and it has been used accordingly.

The process for development of a Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) is well established. The Office of the Privacy Commissioner has published comprehensive guidelines around PIA development. These guidelines allow tailoring to specific circumstances. In terms of the PIA documents regarding online authentication it was agreed in advance that an explicit assessment be made with regards to compliance with the Privacy Act 1993 and that the resulting documents be made public.