New Zealand’s Inspector General of Intelligence and Security has issued a scathing report on a decision by the Government Communications and Security Bureau (GCSB) to host a signals intelligence system deployed by a foreign agency. The system operated from 2013 until 2020, when it was stopped by equipment failure.
Inspector General Brendan Horsley found that the GCSB had decided to host the system in New Zealand “without seeking ministerial approval and without subsequently informing the minister of the system’s existence or purpose.”
He also concluded that the bureau’s senior leadership and legal team “apparently knew nothing of the system until it was brought to their attention in 2020.”
Details of the system are highly classified, limiting the detail the inspectorate can provide in a public report. But Mr. Horsley revealed it “clearly had the potential to be used, in conjunction with other intelligence sources, to support military action against targets.”
Concerns Raised by Staff
Discussion with “international partners” had resulted in potential concerns being raised by GCSB staff. Legal and policy concerns had been identified, including its potential use to support military operations.“These concerns were circulated at the most senior level of the GCSB,” the report says. “There appears to be no substantive written legal advice, despite the GCSB’s General Counsel being involved throughout the process.”
“There are ... no records of any substantive analysis to show how concerns raised about [its use in military targeting] were dealt with. An offer to remove the capability for such targeting was not taken up, but it is not clear whether it was given serious consideration,” the report says.
It describes the authorisation process for intelligence sharing at the time as “manifestly inadequate.”
However, it found that a ministerial authorisation in place in 2012, which allowed the GCSB to share intelligence and cooperate with the foreign partner, “was broad enough to cover the capability and so the decision to host the system without further ministerial approval was lawful.”
Nonetheless, the report noted “it was improper ... for the GCSB to decide on hosting the capability without bringing it to the minister’s attention. By doing so it failed to respect and enable ministerial control of the agency.
GCSB Had ‘No Access’ to Outcomes of Operations
Once approved, the system operated without adequate record keeping; without due diligence of tasking requests by the foreign agency and without full visibility for GCSB of its operations; without adequate training, support or guidance for GCSB operational staff; with “negligible awareness” of it at a senior level within GCSB; and with “no apparent access for GCSB to the outcomes of the capability’s operation.”“After its installation, senior GCSB staff and the bureau’s legal team lost sight of the capability and its operation. It was ’rediscovered' at a senior level following concerns being raised in 2020 about another partner system hosted by GCSB,” the report says.
Critically, the bureau did not pay “due attention” to the system’s identified capability for military targeting.
As a consequence, GCSB did not know whether the data it supplied to the system had been used to support military action.
Mr. Horsley found that the GCSB “could not be sure [that] the tasking of the capability was always in accordance with government intelligence requirements, New Zealand law, and the provisions of the MOU [with the foreign power].”
The foreign country did not cooperate with the inspector general’s inquiry, Mr. Horsley revealed.
“I was not able to access systems or discuss the operation of the capability with the foreign partner agency responsible for it. This limited my ability to determine fully how the capability operated, as the system at GCSB was only a component of a wider programme,” he said.
