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..
The New Zealand Government this week this week (January 29, 2025) released its first non binding AI Framework for the public sector with ethics, human and Indigenous Peoples considerations. View the Public Service AI Framework or downloadable pdf here). The Aotearoa New Zealand government Cabinet has agreed to a light-touch, proportionate and risk-based approach to … Read more
Leaking of sensitive corporate and government data via Generative AI such as ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity is an ongoing risk with many New Zealand companies and the New Zealand government who lack Artificial Intelligence (AI) skills such as AI governance and AI Security. All data that is inputted into an AI models will … Read more
Misleading journalism about the Treaty Principals Bill web site being attacked could lead to similar actions of accusations of interference in the election when Donald Trump lost his second campaign. This lead to his supporters defending their views of political interference which resulted in civil unrest. RNZ, while usually a reputable and balanced New Zealand … Read more
If you are using Microsoft Office products (most people still do) and not other free and sovereign options you likely received or will another annual increase in subscription fees by 40% this year, in addition to last years similar price rise. ConsumerNZ have a great article exposing that this price increase is actually because your … Read more
This research is a follow-on from my previous article about Data Jurisdiction and why many Māori Data Sovereignty Principles are no longer relevant, in particular this article will look at jurisdiction. The findings of this research show that most Māori (individuals, whānau, hapū, marae, Māori Tech company and Iwi) with a web site, email and … Read more
References used by Dr Karaitiana Taiuru in the presentation “Indigenous Privacy Perspectives from Aotearoa/New Zealand” at the IAAP ANZ Summit 2024 Melbourne Conference. References DIA Facial Recognition trial report obfuscate risks to Māori. Te Kete o Karaitiana Taiuru Blog. November 7, 2024 URL: https://taiuru.co.nz/dia-facial-recognition-trial-report-obfuscate-risks-to-maori/ AI expert concerned ‘no Māori with moko’ used in … Read more
Many Māori and others have submitted the DNA samples via web sites such as Ancestory.com and 23andMe to ascertain their whakapapa, many without realising the cultural and privacy issues of doing so. Most often, you are giving away your rights to your own DNA that has all of your information about you and your ancestors. From … Read more
Earlier this week X (formerly Twitter) updated its Privacy Policy to indicate that it would allow third-party “collaborators” to train their AI models on X data, unless users opt out. Thanks to TechCrunch who first published the details. If you have already locked down your Twitter Privacy, there appears no change. This is a timely reminder that your posts … Read more
The dot io domain name is a common General Top Level Domain Name (GTLD) for many tech companies, but also for some Māori groups in part for the tech abbreviation for input/output but also as it is the name of a disputed Māori deity called Io. The dot io domain is assigned to a country … Read more
In the past month, we saw for the first time, a major Iwi, Ngāti Toa announce their investment into one of New Zealand’s many geographically located data centres, while also a Trans-Tasman Indigenous regional edge datacentre provider Gambarra Kaha announced that they have expanded operations to New Zealand with a sole Māori Director. Both announcements … Read more
Using the interview with Michael Running Wolf at https://www-cbc-ca.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.cbc.ca/amp/1.7290740 , I offer some commentary and key warnings for Māori language that I am already seeing occurring here in Aotearoa New Zealand. “Indigenous language experts working in computer science say Artificial Intelligence is a useful tool in language revitalization but communities must prioritize the ownership … Read more
Māori Data Jurisdiction: What the Principle Means, the Cloud Hosting Myths, and Where Māori Data Is Actually Hosted By Dr Karaitiana Taiuru. First published 11 August 2024; combined with “Māori Data Jurisdiction” (26 November 2024) and updated 10 October 2026. Hosting findings are a snapshot as at 26 November 2024. Key facts at a glance … Read more
Slack is a cloud-based team communication platform developed by Slack Technologies, which has been owned by Salesforce since 2020. Slack has freemium and paid subscriptions. Slack’s primary userbase is businesses, and has functionalities primarily for businesses. It is also popular among many groups including Māori. Recently and very discreetly Slack announced on their Privacy Principles: Search, … Read more
In a classic example of AI hallucinating or lying, Meta AI does lie to you. Or perhaps the AI engineers thought it would be funny to add the misinformation to Meta AI? There’s no way to disable Meta AI from either Facebook or Instagram. I asked Meta AI if I could disable it, and the … Read more
This is the second media commendatory on Māori perspectives that relate to AI stories in the media and developments. Again, there are so many stories to consider. Week ending April 10, 2024. LinkedIn post – AI and IA pronouns Waipapa Taumata Rau The University of Auckland and AI expert Professor Michael Witbrock on LinkedIn authored … Read more
I provide my commentary of this weeks 6 media stories of Māori related news regarding Artificial Intelligence and Data Sovereignty. Noting it is highly unusual for even one media story a week regarding Māori and Artificial Intelligence. It is also a reminder that we all must be talking about and recognising Artificial Intelligence is being … Read more
This article explores why there is no ‘one Māori opinion’ and aims to dispel media and politicians comments about “Māori in fighting” use this to create further separation with Waitangi claims, iwi issues and other iwi/social issues that seem to make it to mainstream media. It is based upon Sir Mason Durie’s “Maori Health Decade … Read more
First published in 2012 as a pdf and republished in 2024. Discussion about the costs, procedures and the currently vast amount of space on the Internet for Māori that is either underutilised or not utilised at all. The issue that it will take at least two separate, but more likely three separate applications to have … Read more