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 and Iwi) with a web site, email and other online data (membership registrations, whakapapa, etc) do not consider privacy, jurisdiction, domain branding as Māori, or prior consent of their email and web site associated data as an issue. Most Māori groups prefer to use international servers with no regard to Māori Data Sovereignty, jurisdiction, and other New Zealand legal protections to them and their communities, whānau and end users.

The results from this research show that even the most prominent Māori (and Iwi) Data Sovereignty groups who advise the New Zealand government and others about Māori Data Sovereignty, most Māori tribes and even most Sovereign Māori advocates do not follow Māori Data Sovereignty principles or consider New Zealand legislation to protect their communities, whānau and end users, nor have have most done so since at least 2018 when this test was first completed and annually reviewed since.

 

Methodology

Using publicly accessible IP and DNS tools, information such as IP numbers, jurisdiction, and MX records were used for this research and cross referenced with private tools.

The iwi.nz registrations list was last updated in early 2024. Any domain domains that were expired or did not have any active connectivity either to a web site or an email server were removed from the list.

Māori Data Sovereignty Advocates included 12 organisations that identify themselves as Māori Data and or Sovereignty Advocates and Experts, including 1 individual who is employed by a New Zealand company as an expert in Māori Data and Sovereignty. Their company and others who employ such roles were not considered for this research unless they specifically advocate for Māori Data Sovereignty outside of their primary work place via other groups and in public.

The Māori advocate organisations identified were Te Pāti Māori, a national Māori health provider, Māori Women’s Welfare League and the Kōhanga Reo National Trust.

All groups were identified and used to represent a statistically collective majority and cross section of Māori rights organisations in New Zealand.

Contact information forms were not formally considered in this research due to a number of technical and tikanga complexities that will be included in future research.

The findings are accurate on the day of November 26, 2024, and may have changed since the test as is the nature of web sites and emails.

Scoring system

A maximum score of 3 was achievable. 1 point was awarded for each of the following categories:

1. .nz domain name that is registered with a New Zealand company using New Zealand servers. No dot kiwi domains were identified in this research, nor were any domain name companies with servers overseas.
2. A web site hosted on a New Zealand server
3. Email server based in New Zealand. Where no email server was available it followed an allocation of 0 was given.

 

Key findings

Māori Data and Sovereignty Advocates and Experts

1 organisation Taiuru & Associates (http://www.taiuru.maori.nz) had both web site and email hosted in New Zealand by various New Zealand companies with servers based in New Zealand.

Te Mana Raraunga the organisation who created the original Māori Data Sovereignty Principles only scored a 1/3 as their domain name is a nz domain with a New Zealand company, but it is not registered to Te Mana Raraunga. It is registered to an individual called John Moore. All of their web site content and emails are hosted overseas.

Likewise, Te Kāhui Raraunga the Iwi Data Sovereignty advocacy group with signed agreements with several government departments were the least Māori Data Sovereignty principles compliant with a 0/3 score. Their Te Whata Iwi Data stats web site was designed by a non Māori company, and is stored in America using a non New Zealand domain also generating a score 0/3 in the Māori Data Sovereignty Score.

Also of note: the Kingitanga and the self proclaimed Māori Government, also scored 0/3.

Summary

• 12 Māori Sovereign advocates (organisations and an individual) were identified who sit outside of academia, who have their own dedicated web sites that either specifically promote Māori Data Sovereignty, Māori Data and Māori Sovereignty or call themselves Māori Data Sovereignty experts.
• 8 of the 12 had dot nz domain names which were all registered with a NZ company. 3 groups use a .maori.nz domain: Te Mana Raraunga, Māori Government and Taiuru & Associates Ltd.
• 2 had email servers in New Zealand.
• 1 had a web site hosted in New Zealand. The same web site also had email hosted in New Zealand.

 

Iwi

Only 3 out of 85 Iwi groups with a .iwi.nz domain name host all of their data in New Zealand non-proprietary servers and tools

• 85 Iwi web sites using the iwi.nz domain name was identified with active web sites and or active email servers.
• 62 iwi had both their emails and web site content including memberships databases hosted internationally. Score: 1/3.
• 17 iwi had New Zealand based web sites, but not emails hosted in New Zealand. Score: 2/3.
• 6 iwi had New Zealand based emails and web sites hosted in New Zealand. Score: 3/3.

 

Wānanga

• None of the three Wānanga had web sites or emails hosted in New Zealand.
• One had a non-New Zealand based domain name. The other 2 used .ac.nz domains.

 

Māori businesses

10% of Māori businesses were fully compliant with Māori Data Sovereignty Principles of jurisdiction with a preference to not use .maori.nz

• 10 out of 100 Māori owned businesses chosen at random from two online Māori business directories representing Māori all over the country had emails and web site hosted in New Zealand with a New Zealand based domain name.
• 40 out of 100 domains were non-New Zealand domains.
• .nz and .co.nz were the preferred domain names, not .maori.nz

 

Māori advocates

This category identified 4 national Māori advocate organisations.

• 1 used a .com, the 3 others used various .nz domain names.
• All 4 used international hosts for email and web content.

 

Summary

Despite almost ten years Māori Data Sovereignty Principles in New Zealand and significant efforts by many to have them recognised; despite WAI 2522 recognising Māori Data is a Taonga and Māori Data Sovereignty Principles, in particular jurisdiction, most Māori and all but one Māori Data Sovereignty expert, do not subscribe to, nor implement Māori Data principles of jurisdiction among many other concerns such as New Zealand legal rights such as privacy.

The notion of jurisdiction with Māori Data Sovereignty Principles was at the time the principles were drafted a lot more relevant than today with the widespread use of encryption, the saturation of the popular Microsoft suite of server tools and Cloud hosting.

My recent research that proves the feared Cloud Act is not realistically a genuine threat when considering the statistical probability of it being enacted on New Zealand citizens is 0.007% and considering the many other options that can also be used to summons Māori data are also rarely implemented.

There are likely several reasons for the lack of jurisdictional care including large scale marketing and branding of international options, costs, accessibility and a lack of NZ data centre marketing of options that are targeted at New Zealand communities such as small business, iwi, Māori and community groups.

Perhaps the most obvious issue is the cost effectiveness to host on an international hosting company based in America with full control panels that require little to no technical knowledge to maintain and manage a web site.