with Dr Karaitiana Taiuru
Māori Data Sovereignty is the right of Māori to govern the collection, ownership, storage and use of Māori data, as guaranteed by Te Tiriti o Waitangi. The Waitangi Tribunal’s WAI 2522 findings recognise Māori data as a taonga. These articles apply that standard to real decisions, from health records, genomics and digital identity to data centres, cloud services and generative AI. Rangatiratanga over data sits with whānau, hapū and iwi, so the posts look at tikanga and jurisdiction at those levels. They also explain why data residency in Aotearoa is not the same as data sovereignty. For the principles in full, start with the Compendium of Māori Data Sovereignty or the Māori Data Sovereignty overview..
There are many ways to recognise Māori Data Sovereignty, and there is no single framework. Over the past decade, Māori researchers, iwi, hapū, Māori organisations and practitioners, in addition to the New Zealand Government have built a wide range of kaupapa Māori frameworks, principles, guidelines and licences. This page lists 70 unique Māori AI and … Read more
This is a copy of a post I wrote for Verfassungsblog Symposium in the series Thinking Machines, Thinking Lawyers. The title is “What AI Cannot See; Indigenous Legal Knowledge and the Future of Legal Scholarship”. The original article and credits are here. Background In the article I ask whose law AI systems know. Large language … Read more
Māori are named in only about a third of New Zealand news stories about Artificial Intelligence (AI). Māori are talked about, but rarely heard. When you count who is quoted, Māori technology, rights and data sovereignty voices make up just 3% of media articles. This creates an issue where Māori societal harms, opportunities and benefits … Read more
Voyager Broadband‘s (Actrix Networks, 1st Domains / Affordable Domains / Register Direct) latest advertisement (via RNZ) shows two Māori/Pacific men, one of whom is attacking a Pākehā man by having him in a chocker hold on the floor, after their internet drops out during a UFC match on the television. The advert was made with … Read more
This article explores a proposed Māori led framework for datacentre development. Using a Māori owned and developed framework using environmental protections that are interwoven in tikanga Māori that respect and utilise the New Zealand environment. It argues that by doing so, New Zealand could sustainably cater to the development of AI and Data centres. This … Read more
This post analyses public preferences of the use of GenAI in the policy decision-making process across New Zealand and compares non-New Zealand Māori to other New Zealand’s preferences. The methodology is at the end of the article. Public preferences of the use of GenAI in the policy decision-making process across New Zealand. Each column is … Read more
There is an urgent need for marae to implement new kawa and tikanga to protect the people form anonymously being AI’s training data. Camera glasses (pervert glasses) now sold at Kmart for ninety-nine dollars, and other more expensive glasses with facial recognition updates, recording video and stills, wired to an AI assistant are about to … Read more
My ongoing investigation of scraped and stolen Māori knowledge by AI has identified more than 80 Māori authors, 8 non Māori kaupapa Māori authors (194 plus titles) and song artists; 100’s of videos from Te Karere TVNZ and Marae TV sourced primarily from YouTube, Māori academics articles published in Elsevier and JSTOR, including texts from … Read more
This week Google Maps began rolling out a New Zealand voice that pronounces te reo Māori place names correctly. Place name Whangārei with the soft “f” sound from an New Zealand dialect, Taupō with the long vowel, Karangahape Road spoken as it was named by our tūpuna, not as decades of navigation systems and generations … Read more
Too often in New Zealand, AI safety folk (who usually have a high level of privilege or are detached from vulnerable communities), will reference international AI stories highlighting harms while being oblivious to local harm stories. This is important from the perspective that New Zealand is not immune from AI harms and it helps politicians … Read more
A New Zealand model Elijah Timmins-Scanlon alleges streetwear brand Huffer is generating models with AI, using the likeness of models from previous Huffer campaigns, without disclosure. Shockingly, On 6 June, Huffer wrote to him demanding he “immediately remove, or amend” posts it claimed may breach the Harmful Digital Communications Act 2015 and asserted a right … Read more
Anthropic the company behind the Claude AI received with no warning or explanation, a directive directing them to immediately suspend access to their Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models for all foreign nationals in America and all non-Americans on the planet, . This included New Zealand who had access for several days prior. “Fable 5 … Read more
The Ministry for Regulation’s Responsible AI in Action guidance (May 2026) represents a credible foundation for regulators engaging with Artificial Intelligence. However, the guidance contains a significant and consequential gap: its treatment of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and Māori data sovereignty is underdeveloped, incorrect, outdated, and structurally undermined by the absence of Māori voices in … Read more
In 1907, the New Zealand Government passed an Act with a single purpose: to suppress tohunga and the traditional Māori knowledge and beliefs they held. It was not repealed until 1962. This was in addition to the Natives Schools Act, repression of reo Māori and culture and other systematic cultural erasure. I grew up seeing … Read more
The current coalition government has announced the elimination of approximately 8,700 public sector positions or 14% of the public workforce alongside NZ$2.4 billion in spending reductions over three years, with AI deployed as the replacement mechanism. The PSA has been direct in its assessment: AI is being used as a justification for politically driven job … Read more
As AI systems grow more capable, companies appear increasingly willing to look beyond traditional engineering disciplines for guidance on questions that touch on consciousness, identity and what it means to interact meaningfully with a machine. On 13 April 2026, Google DeepMind announced it had hired philosopher Henry Shevlin to study machine consciousness, human AI relationships, … Read more
I am often asked by individuals how they can better implement Data and Digital Sovereignty in their home and whānau lives. Here are some immediate steps you can take that will protect your privacy and save you money. Primary audience is non-technically literate people using a Windows computer, who want to save money and increase … Read more
There is a pattern in New Zealand’s AI and data governance landscape that is rarely named directly, but it is immediately recognisable to anyone who has worked in this space. When organisations, government agencies, technology companies, universities, and research institutions decide they need Māori input into their AI and Data ethics frameworks, they do not, … Read more