Migration 5 countries suspend plans to share citizens’ criminal conviction data — RNZ

New Zealand, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia, which are part of the Migration 5 grouping, have suspended work on a possible exchange of data on their own citizens’ criminal convictions. M5 leaders agreed to put this work on hold in April 2026.

Legislative limitations

As RNZ reports, the existing cooperation mechanisms among Migration 5 countries focus on managing identity data in the migration field. They do not provide for the transfer of information on criminal convictions to New Zealand Police, and member states do not exchange data on their own citizens under these arrangements.

Immigration New Zealand identity manager Matt Gibbs said that more recent discussions considered the possibility of using anonymised fingerprint biometric data to check police information or criminal records. New Zealand agencies concluded that, under current legislation, foreign authorities have no basis to access New Zealand Police systems or court data on criminal convictions for migration purposes.

According to Gibbs, no biometric data or information on criminal convictions was transferred during this exploratory work. The subgroup dealing with the matter has not held formal meetings since a virtual meeting on 27 March 2025.

More current news is available on the UA.News Telegram channel Telegram.

Traveller data checks

New Zealand has had agreements on automated information exchange with its partners since the early 2010s, except for the United Kingdom. In May 2025, M5 partners agreed on a quality-control system, and the first annual checks began in early 2026. Checks conducted by New Zealand for the 2025 calendar year found no privacy breaches, system access security issues, or accidental or inappropriate disclosure of information to partners.

Documents obtained under the Official Information Act show that in the year to April 2026, Australia requested traveller data from New Zealand more than one million times. In 676 cases, a fingerprint match was recorded. Data on requests from Canada and the United States were redacted.

For its part, New Zealand sent approximately 4,000 requests each to Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom. Positive check results were received in 383, 340 and 283 cases respectively. Data on requests to the United States were not released due to international relations considerations.