When our spot speed and average speed safety cameras detect speeding, they capture images and information about the speeding vehicle.
The information they collect includes:
We use the plate number to identify the registered person responsible for the vehicle at the time of the infringement, as recorded in the Motor Vehicle Register.
* Photos may or may not show people inside the vehicle. It depends on things like the camera angle, and travel direction.
We keep the information our safety cameras capture for up to 7 years, depending on its type:
We only share safety camera data in accordance with the Privacy Act 2020, to process infringements or as otherwise required by law. Schedule 4 of the Privacy Act 2020 gives the authority to share certain personal information for the following purposes:
Information Privacy Principle 11 in section 22 of the Privacy Act 2020 details how personal information may otherwise be shared.
Schedule 4 of the Privacy Act 2020(external link)
Section 22 of the Privacy Act 2020(external link)
Our general privacy statement on information storage, security, and accessing and correcting your information also applies to the safety camera system.
General privacy statement
Our privacy impact assessment describes security controls for the information our safety cameras capture.
Privacy impact assessment [PDF, 1.6 MB]
Before cameras become fully operational and detect speeding, they’re tested for some time. Throughout the testing phase, we don’t issue infringement notices and we only store personal information for the time needed to test our processes. We delete any data we’ve captured when the test ends.
We’ve described the purpose and scope of each type of test in our privacy impact assessment.
Privacy impact assessment [PDF, 1.6 MB]
We won’t share the information our safety cameras collect in test mode with any third parties, other than our technology providers.
Safety cameras also collect non-personal information for research and statistical analysis into roading activity. This includes information about vehicle types, counts and speeds, offence counts, and camera performance metrics. The data we collect for this purpose doesn’t identify individuals or include personal information. We keep it for as long as it’s useful for research purposes.
We release anonymised data sets through our Open Data Portal.
Waka Kotahi Open Data Portal(external link)
While our general privacy protections apply to how we use safety cameras, we also have another set of specific privacy protections in place for safety cameras and these are documented in our PIA. That's because the information we'll collect using safety cameras, and the ways we'll use the informaiton, is new for NZTA and sits outside of our general privacy protections. We consult the Office of the Privacy Commissioner as we develop our privacy protections, and we also consult with our Safety Cameras Māori Advisory Group (Te Rōpū) on data protection considerations.
As we introduce new types of safety cameras, we’ll review our PIA to make sure it stays accurate.
If you use your debit or credit card to pay for an infringement fee, we’ll transfer you to Paymark, our card payment provider. The Paymark privacy policy will apply.
Paymark Privacy Policy(external link)
If you pay by internet banking, we’ll transfer you to POLi to process your payment, and the POLi privacy policy will apply.
POLi Privacy Policy(external link)
We collect card or bank account details to process a refund. We won’t keep card information, but we will keep bank account details to allow our system to process the refund. We’ll hold the bank account and refund information in our system for 7 years.
Request access to or correction of your information
If you have a complaint about how we handled your personal information, please see our privacy complaints information.
