organisation

New Zealand Police

New Zealand's national police service

AI · 19 Oct 2026Police AI misuse: Investigators uploaded 350,000 lines of audio to unsecured platform, documents show

New Zealand Police investigators repeatedly misused artificial intelligence translation tools, including uploading 350,000 lines of Chinese audio to Google Translate and breaking bans on transcribing English audio, official documents released under the Official Information Act show. The breaches occurred during a period of intense pressure on investigators and after an initial success using the Whisper AI system to translate Chinese-language phone intercepts in the 2024 Gulf Harbour body investigation.