Māori Data Sovereignty Principles

Formerly published as the Compendium of Māori Data Sovereignty.

Māori data sovereignty is the inherent right of Māori, whānau, hapū, iwi, marae and rōpū Māori to exercise control over Māori data and Māori data ecosystems. It is grounded in Te Tiriti o Waitangi and He Whakaputanga, and given legal definition by the Waitangi Tribunal’s WAI 2522 report.

The Tribunal frames Māori data sovereignty as Māori data governance: the principles, structures, accountability mechanisms, legal instruments and policies through which Māori exercise control over Māori data. This page is Dr Karaitiana Taiuru’s current, consolidated statement of Māori data sovereignty. It sets out two complementary sets of principles, explains how they apply to artificial intelligence, and brings together the definitions, frameworks, commitment statements, datasets and licences that put them into practice. It replaces the Compendium of Māori Data Sovereignty.

Māori data sovereignty is a Te Tiriti obligation, not a matter of consultation. The principles below treat Te Tiriti o Waitangi as a constitutional threshold, and recognise that authority over Māori data sits across the full Māori societal hierarchy: whānau, hapū, iwi, marae and rōpū Māori, because it was hapū leaders who signed Te Tiriti, not iwi as later constructed. Where a framework locates that authority only at the iwi level, it understates the right.

Suggested citation: Taiuru, K. (2022). Māori data sovereignty principles. Taiuru & Associates Ltd. https://www.taiuru.co.nz/maori-data-sovereignty-principles/

 

What is Māori data?

The Waitangi Tribunal’s WAI 2522 report defines Māori data as digital or digitisable information or knowledge that is about or from Māori people, language, culture, resources or environments. In tikanga terms, all data has a whakapapa (genealogy) and a mauri (life essence). Māori data is a taonga, and Māori custom does not draw a sharp line between land and data: both are inherited, both are governed, and both attract the Crown’s Te Tiriti duty of active protection, a duty that does not lapse when data is aggregated, anonymised, or moved offshore.

Māori data is only ever a loan. Non-Māori cannot own Māori data: they hold it under kaitiakitanga, or they hold it in breach.

Two sets of principles

Dr Taiuru uses two complementary sets of principles, and both apply to any use of Māori data:

• Te Tiriti principles of Māori data sovereignty set out the obligations Te Tiriti o Waitangi places on the Crown and anyone else handling Māori data.
• Pan-Māori data sovereignty principles set out the tikanga values that govern Māori data itself. They are a te ao Māori enhancement of the Te Mana Raraunga Principles of Māori Data Sovereignty (2018).

Te Tiriti principles of Māori data sovereignty

The principles of Māori data sovereignty derive from Te Tiriti o Waitangi and tikanga Māori. They were first named for the data context in Aotearoa in the mid-2010s, and are set out here as developed and future-proofed by Dr Karaitiana Taiuru to recognise tikanga and the full range of Māori society, modern and traditional.

1. Tino Rangatiratanga: authority and self-determination

Māori exercise authority, control and self-determination over Māori data at all stages of its lifecycle. This authority sits at the iwi and hapū level. Governance, decision-making and leadership over data are embedded from inception through to monitoring.

2. Active Protection: Kia mataara

The Crown and those handling Māori data must act to the fullest extent practicable to protect Māori data and achieve equitable outcomes. This includes free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) for the use of Māori data, and robust procedures to prevent bias, stigmatisation or harm.

3. Equity: Ōritetanga

Data collection, governance and use must produce equitable outcomes for Māori, individually and collectively, and contribute to Māori development. Organisations remain accountable to Māori for how data and its outputs affect them.

4. Mana Whakahaere: kaitiaki stewardship

Effective and appropriate stewardship (kaitiakitanga) is exercised over Māori data. A deep understanding of the source and intended use of data is required so it is not repurposed without permission, or in a way that diminishes the mana of Māori. Where Māori contribute data, recognised intellectual property rights are proportioned accordingly.

5. Mana Motuhake: autonomy and control

Māori decide what data is collected, and what data uses are controlled or allowed. Tikanga is followed throughout the whole data and system lifecycle.

6. Tapu and Noa: culturally safe practice

No data practice may be culturally unsafe or breach the rules of tapu and noa. This governs the handling of sensitive data, including images, whakapapa and biological information, so that what is tapu is not associated with what is noa in ways that are offensive to Māori.

Pan-Māori data sovereignty principles

Te Mana Raraunga published the original Principles of Māori Data Sovereignty in 2018. They have not kept pace with technological change, and they locate rights mainly at the iwi level. Through national consultation with Māori groups, hapū, iwi, tohunga and mātanga, Dr Taiuru has enhanced those principles to embed traditional tikanga and te ao Māori perspectives, and to recognise both individual and collective rights. The enhanced principles are set out below.

1. Rangatiratanga: Authority

Control

Māori, whānau, hapū, iwi, marae and rōpū Māori have an inherent right to control Māori data and Māori data ecosystems, including creation, collection, access, analysis, interpretation, management, security, dissemination, use and reuse.

Jurisdiction

Decisions about the physical and virtual storage of Māori data shall enhance control for current and future generations. Wherever possible, Māori data shall be stored in New Zealand.

Self-determination

Māori have the right to data that empowers self-determination and effective self-governance, and the right to request removal of data that is contrary to tikanga or that disempowers or is biased against Māori.

2. Whakapapa: Identity

Context

All data has a whakapapa and a mauri. Metadata should at minimum record the provenance of the data, the purpose and context of its collection, and the parties involved.

Data disaggregation

The ability to disaggregate Māori data increases its relevance. Māori data shall be collected and coded using categories that prioritise the needs and aspirations of whānau, hapū, iwi, marae and rōpū Māori.

Future use

Decisions made over data today have long-term consequences. A key goal of Māori data governance is to protect against future harm to coming generations.

3. Whanaungatanga: Obligations

Balancing rights

Individual rights, risks and benefits must be balanced with those of the collective. In some contexts, collective Māori rights will prevail over those of individuals.

Accountabilities

Those who create, collect, analyse, manage, access, secure or disseminate Māori data hold intergenerational accountability to the Māori from whom the data derive.

4. Kotahitanga: Collective benefit

Benefit

Data ecosystems shall be designed to enable Māori to derive individual and collective benefit, now and for future generations.

Build capacity

Māori data sovereignty requires the development of a Māori workforce to create, manage, secure, govern and apply data.

Connect

Connections between Māori and other Indigenous peoples shall be supported, to share strategies, resources and ideas and to pursue common goals.

5. Manaakitanga: Reciprocity

Respect

The collection, use and interpretation of data shall uphold the dignity of Māori. Data analysis that stigmatises or blames Māori causes collective and individual harm and shall be actively avoided.

Consent

Free, prior and informed consent (FPIC), affirmed in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), shall underpin the collection and use of all data from or about Māori.

6. Kaitiakitanga: Guardianship

Māori data is only ever a loan

Māori data shall be stored and transferred in ways that reinforce the capacity of Māori to exercise kaitiakitanga over it. Non-Māori cannot own Māori data. Māori will always be the kaitiaki of Māori data.

Ethics

Tikanga, kawa, mātauranga, Te Tiriti (including WAI 262 and WAI 2522), He Whakaputanga and UNDRIP shall underpin the protection, access and use of Māori data.

Restrictions

Māori shall decide which Māori data may be accessed, and by whom.

Tikanga is law

In Ellis v R [2022] NZSC 114 the Supreme Court accepted that tikanga was the first law of Aotearoa New Zealand, that it was not displaced by the arrival of English common law, and that it continues to shape and regulate the lives of Māori. The Court held that the colonial tests previously used to admit tikanga into the common law should no longer apply, and cautioned that care must be taken not to impair the operation of tikanga as a system of law and custom in its own right. The decision speaks directly to Māori data sovereignty.

How do Māori data sovereignty principles apply to AI?

Artificial intelligence is a particular, high-stakes use of data. Any AI system that uses Māori data, produces Māori data, or makes decisions about Māori, collectively or individually, must give effect to these principles. Dr Taiuru’s 6 Te Tiriti based artificial intelligence ethical principles extend Māori data sovereignty into the AI lifecycle, requiring tino rangatiratanga, equity, active protection, mana whakahaere, mana motuhake and tapu/noa cultural safety to be embedded from inception and design through to release and monitoring. Where physical or autonomous systems are involved, they should be read with his Te Tiriti o Waitangi Principles for Robotics.

Data residency is not data sovereignty

Data residency is where data is stored. Data sovereignty is who holds authority over it, and which jurisdiction governs it. Māori data hosted in New Zealand can still breach Māori data sovereignty if Māori do not govern it, and proprietary licences that restrict access to Māori data or claim intellectual property rights over it are themselves a breach. Read more on the Māori Data Sovereignty overview page.

How is Māori data sovereignty different from Indigenous data sovereignty?

Māori data sovereignty is the expression in Aotearoa of the global Indigenous data sovereignty movement. It is distinguished by its constitutional foundation in He Whakaputanga (1835) and Te Tiriti o Waitangi (1840), and by its own jurisprudence: WAI 262 is its genesis and WAI 2522 provides its primary contemporary definitions. Modelling it on the generic Indigenous template alone omits the distinct Māori societal hierarchy. Read more on the Māori Data Sovereignty overview page.

The legal foundation

Māori data sovereignty is anchored in a developing framework of constitutional instruments, Tribunal findings, legislation and case law:

• He Whakaputanga (1835) and Te Tiriti o Waitangi (1840): the constitutional foundation guaranteeing tino rangatiratanga to hapū.
• WAI 262, Ko Aotearoa Tēnei (2011): the Māori intellectual property claim, and the genesis of modern Māori data sovereignty.
• WAI 2522 (2023): the Waitangi Tribunal’s report on the CPTPP, providing the primary definitions of Māori data and Māori data sovereignty.
• Te Pou Matakana Ltd v Attorney-General [2021] NZHC 3319: recognising collective rights to Māori data.
• Ellis v R [2022] NZSC 114: the Supreme Court confirming tikanga Māori as part of New Zealand common law.
• Data and Statistics Act 2022, Digital Identity Services Trust Framework Act 2023 and Privacy Act 2020: statutory recognition of Te Tiriti in the data and digital context.
• UNDRIP (2007, endorsed by New Zealand in 2010): affirming collective Indigenous rights, including FPIC.

Note on origins: the naming of Māori data sovereignty principles in Aotearoa emerged from Māori researchers and practitioners in the mid-2010s. The formulation on this page has been developed and future-proofed by Dr Karaitiana Taiuru to recognise tikanga, the full Māori societal hierarchy, and the constitutional instruments He Whakaputanga, Te Tiriti and UNDRIP, which the earlier, iwi-focused framing understated.

Read the governance reports

Dr Taiuru’s published reports and frameworks apply these principles to live governance problems, from the State of the Nation Māori Data Governance analysis to sovereign AI, data classification, licensing and framework critique.

Māori Data Governance Report

Definitions of Māori data sovereignty

Māori Data Sovereignty refers to the inherent rights and interests Māori, whānau, hapū, iwi and Māori organisations have in relation to the creation, collection, access, analysis, interpretation, management, dissemination, re-use, and control of data relating to Māori, whānau, hapū, iwi and Māori organisations as guaranteed in Article II of Te Tiriti/Treaty of Waitangi (Taiuru, K. 2020).

This definition is the umbrella definition of Māori Data Sovereignty and should be adapted depending on the circumstances, as seen under the headings “Whānau, Hapū, Marae, Rōpū and Iwi” in this section.

The above definition firstly recognises the Te Tiriti commitment by the Crown to Māori, and that the term iwi is a post-colonial construct grouping whānau, individuals, marae and other groups under the one heading (see the Glossary for a detailed explanation).

The above definition also reflects that WAI 262, which set the foundation for data as a taonga, was lodged by individuals who were experts in tikanga and mātauranga Māori, and that communications with their individual descendants are occurring with the Crown.

In the Waitangi Tribunal’s updated 2023 WAI 2522 Report on the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), the Tribunal defines Māori Data Sovereignty as:

“Māori Data Governance. The principles, structures, accountability mechanisms, legal instruments, and policies through which Māori exercise control over Māori data”.

Te Mana Raraunga definition of Māori data sovereignty

Māori Data Sovereignty recognises that Māori data should be subject to Māori governance. Māori data sovereignty supports tribal sovereignty and the realisation of Māori and Iwi aspirations^[2].

Te Mana Raraunga created the above definition, which is widely referenced by the Crown. Unfortunately, it ignores (a) Te Tiriti, (b) He Whakaputanga, (c) whānau, individuals, marae and other Māori societal groups, (d) UNDRIP, which protects all of Māori society, (e) the fact that hapū leaders signed Te Tiriti as hapū leaders, not as iwi, and (f) many other conflicts with traditional Māori beliefs and social and political structures.

Iwi

The fact that iwi did not sign Te Tiriti or He Whakaputanga, but that over 500 rangatira signed Te Tiriti as representatives of their hapū and 52 northern rangatira signed He Whakaputanga on behalf of their hapū, is overlooked in this definition. By doing this, it allows the Crown to engage with only one iwi group, the Iwi Leaders Forum, and its sub-group the Iwi Leaders Data Forum via an Ōrite Agreement, as StatsNZ has done^[3].

The Iwi Leaders Forum represents a portion of iwi (about 50), while StatsNZ recognise 170 iwi consisting of modern confederations, corporate iwi structures and negotiating groups, while ignoring other pre-colonisation iwi which feature in whakapapa and histories.

In the post-Treaty settlement era, the aspirations of iwi differ greatly from iwi to iwi. Some iwi are multi-million-dollar corporates, while other iwi have no finances or property and are seeking to reclaim their identity and negotiate Treaty settlements. Based on pre-colonial Māori histories of migration, warfare and tribal mergers, it is likely that most Māori individuals have more than one iwi.

If only iwi are recognised as having data sovereignty, there is a potential to create a new sub-class of Māori who do not know their iwi. StatsNZ Census 2018 states only 20% of Māori know or engage with their iwi.

Examples include:

Ngāi Tahu. In the 2013 Census^[4], the number of people who affiliated to Ngāi Tahu was 54,819, while tribal registrations at the time were at least 20,000 fewer. Researcher Dr Eruera Tarena identified that less than 10% of Ngāi Tahu registered members interact with Ngāi Tahu, and those who do are usually politically motivated and from influential families^[5].

Under legislation, Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu requires the agreement of 18 Papatipu Rūnanga (tribal councils) to make significant decisions^[6]. Considering this is a $1 billion-plus, multi-level corporation with no established science or technology division, and that there is no tribal representative on the Iwi Leaders Forum Data group, it must be asked how the tribe provides input into what is perceived as a subcommittee on Māori data (there is no public information on the website and no public details of this committee, despite other committees being public).

There are three further examples of public disagreements within iwi who have been forced into a western Eurocentric structure. Tūhoe Iwi are at odds with their own hapū over decision-making and resources^[7]. Whakatōhea Iwi ended up in the Waitangi Tribunal, making a number of serious allegations against their negotiator for not representing marae and hapū^[8]. Ngāti Rereahu are asking to manage any land in its rohe returned under the Te Rohe Pōtae settlement, rather than have it owned by a post-settlement governance entity for all of Ngāti Maniapoto^[9].

Another issue with the definition above is that iwi are not sovereign nations like the Indigenous tribes in America and Canada. Iwi are often legislated bodies of elected representatives, commercial entities, charitable trusts, conglomerates and amalgamations of other iwi and groups.

Māori

The term Māori is a general term used by colonial settlers to categorise the Indigenous Peoples of New Zealand. The term Māori does not mean an iwi or a hapū, which are collectives of Māori Peoples with intergenerational inherited rights and obligations; these therefore need to be explored in relation to data sovereignty. In New Zealand statutes, any person who has an ancestor who is Māori can claim to be Māori. There is no way to prove that a person is Māori, and rightfully so. This creates the need, explained under the next sub-headings, to expand the meanings of data sovereignty for Māori.

Indigenous data sovereignty

Another issue is that the term Māori Data Sovereignty has been modelled on Indigenous Data Sovereignty principles, despite Māori having a different societal hierarchy and instruments such as He Whakaputanga, Te Tiriti and other significant instruments and legislation.

Despite the global Indigenous model being used, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007) has also been omitted, despite the New Zealand government endorsing the Declaration in 2010 and a large effort by government to implement it.

To adequately reflect and represent Māori societal hierarchy, the following sub-definitions of Māori Data Sovereignty are required.

Whānau Māori data sovereignty

Whānau Māori Data Sovereignty refers to the inherent rights and interests whānau Māori have in relation to the creation, collection, access, analysis, interpretation, management, dissemination, re-use and control of data relating to whānau Māori, as inherited by whakapapa with mana atua and mana tangata, and as guaranteed in He Whakaputanga and/or Te Tiriti and the recognition of rights provided by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Hapū Māori data sovereignty

Hapū Māori Data Sovereignty refers to the inherent rights and interests of hapū (individually or collectively) in relation to the creation, collection, access, analysis, interpretation, management, dissemination, re-use and control of data relating to hapū, as inherited by whakapapa with mana atua and mana tangata, and/or reflected in He Whakaputanga and/or Te Tiriti and the recognition of rights provided by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Marae/Rūnanga data sovereignty

Marae/Rūnanga Data Sovereignty refers to the inherent rights and interests of marae/rūnanga (individually or collectively) in relation to the creation, collection, access, analysis, interpretation, management, dissemination, re-use and control of data relating to a marae/rūnanga, as inherited by whakapapa with mana atua and mana tangata, and/or reflected in He Whakaputanga and/or Te Tiriti and the recognition of rights provided by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Rōpū Māori data sovereignty

Rōpū Māori Data Sovereignty refers to the inherent rights and interests Māori organisations (commercial, not-for-profit, collectives, representatives, consortiums, religious and others) have in relation to the creation, collection, access, analysis, interpretation, management, dissemination, re-use and control of data relating to Māori organisations and Māori Peoples, as inherited by whakapapa with mana atua and mana tangata, and/or guaranteed to Māori Peoples in He Whakaputanga, Te Tiriti and the recognition of rights provided by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Iwi Māori data sovereignty

Iwi Māori Data Sovereignty refers to the inherent rights and interests that iwi have in relation to the creation, collection, access, analysis, interpretation, management, dissemination, re-use and control of data relating to a specific iwi, as guaranteed in He Whakaputanga and/or Te Tiriti and the recognition of rights provided by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Rangitāne o Wairarapa are one example of an iwi who have exercised their own rangatiratanga and developed their own Iwi Data Sovereignty strategy and principles using their own whakapapa, kawa and mātauranga.

Iwi corporates and hapū data sovereignty principles

The pan-Māori data sovereignty principles are set out at the top of this page.

Before colonial settlement of New Zealand, Māori Peoples identified themselves primarily as descendants of Ranginui and Papatūānuku and/or of Tiki, as seen in the following three pepeha:

• Te aitanga a Tiki. The offspring of Tiki. This is applied to human beings. Tiki from the world of Chaos (Po) married Ea of the world of light. They had Kurawkaka who married Tane-nui-a-rangi, the beginning of the human race (Best, 1903, p. 17).
• Ngā uri o Tiki. The descendants of Tiki. These are the human race, as Tiki was its progenitor (Colenso, 1879, p. 91).
• Nā Rangi taua, nā Tūānuku e takoto nei; ko ahau tēnei, ko mea a mea. We are descended from Rangi and Tūānuku; as for me, I am so-and-so, child of so-and-so. This was the prescribed formula for responding to a chief who welcomed one to his village. The stranger established their common ancestry and then related essential elements of their own lineage (Brougham, 1975, p. 70).

Secondly, Māori identified themselves from the strata of their tribal structures, these being whānau, hapū, iwi and waka (Barlow, 1991; Buck, 1949; Firth, 1972; Gibbons, Temara, & White, 1994; Papakura, 1986; Willmott, 1989, pp. 1–20).

Tribal structures provided a format in which Māori could undertake their political relations, enriched by their traditions and strengthened by their sense of tribal identity (Ministerial Advisory Committee, 1988). For example, iwi members of Ngāi Tahu did, and still to this day, refer to themselves as descendants of Tahu Pōtiki (He uri au/ia o Tahu Pōtiki).

The important aspect of the modern-day term Māori is that you must have whakapapa to be Māori, regardless of the amount of whakapapa. The potential danger of using only the term Māori Data Sovereignty is that, within New Zealand legislation, anyone can claim to be Māori without proving it.

This is a dichotomy for Māori, who enjoy the autonomy of self-identification (tino rangatiratanga) without the need for legislation to decide whether a Māori person is indeed Māori by introducing racist blood quantum measurements.

Increasingly, the general term “Māori Data Sovereignty” will be phased out, and Māori will once again revert to identifying their data and data sovereignty from the strata of their tribal structures: “whānau, hapū, iwi, marae, waka, and the myriad of different Māori organisations/rōpū Māori”, to properly have data sovereignty and to prevent data colonisation.

Increasingly, in a post-Treaty settlement era, there are iwi corporates who are also New Zealand government Treaty partners, such as Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu^[10] and Waikato Tainui^[11]. Each iwi corporate, as with any corporate, has its own set of values and mission statements that may override traditional Māori values.

The corporate values and visions may not necessarily be the same as those of their hapū and marae. But if dealing with iwi corporate data, the iwi corporate values should take priority.

Some iwi corporates are members of the Iwi Chairs Forum^[12], another iwi-based Treaty partner, which also has its own set of values: Rangatiratanga, Whanaungatanga, Manaakitanga, Kaitiakitanga and Tikanga.

The following are examples of iwi corporate values.

Ngāti Kahungunu^[13]

The mission or purpose states the reason for the existence of Ngāti Kahungunu Iwi Incorporated: “To enhance the mana and wellbeing of Ngāti Kahungunu.” This will be achieved by empowering the iwi to achieve success at the levels of whānau, hapū, Taiwhenua and Taura here. The iwi will determine what success is from its own goals and aspirations.

These guiding principles set the boundaries within which we will work and are not to be compromised for financial gain or short-term expediency.

• Te Tūhonohonotanga o Kahungunu – Tapestry of whakapapa that makes us who we are today
• Te Hononga Māreikura o Takitimu – How we relate to other iwi / waka
• Te Kotahitanga – League of peoples
• Te Whakaputanga o te Ao – Declaration of independence
• Te Tiriti o Waitangi – Joint venture with Crown
• Kanohi ki te kanohi – “Face to face”
• Pakihiwi ki te pakihiwi – “Shoulder to shoulder” ~ How we do things
• Tino Rangatiratanga – begins with self, continues through the whānau, the hapū and the iwi.
  • Controlling our own resources
  • Making our own decisions
  • Determining our own outcomes
  • Owning the consequences of our decisions
  • Tū whakahīhī ~ assertive, confident, standing tall and strong
  • Independent and contributing to our society
  • Government boundaries align to Iwi boundary

Ngāti Rārua^[14]

Their mission is to have a vibrant Ngāti Rārua culture, economy and society by the year 2040. This will be achieved with a focus on three pillars, briefly outlined below.

Hononga: Our Social Strategy

Tikanga:

• Manaakitanga – looking after each other
• Rangatiratanga – practising and advocating leadership
• Whanaungatanga – creating a sense of family and acting as a family

Looking forward:

• Engaging more whānau
• Knowing ‘us’ best
• Investing in an iwi database
• Social networking

Waikato Tainui^[15]

Waikato Tainui have the following principles: Whakaiti – Humility, Whakapono – Trust and Faith, Aroha – Love and Respect, Rangimaarie – Peace and Calm, Manaakitanga – Caring, Kotahitanga – Unity, and Mahi tahi – Collaboration.

In addition to these principles is their 2050 vision statement. Whakatupuranga Waikato-Tainui 2050 is the blueprint for cultural, social and economic advancement for Waikato-Tainui people. It is a long-term development approach to building the capacity of Waikato-Tainui marae, hapū and iwi. The goals and objectives from the blueprint are: Hapori; Kaupapa; Mahi; Tonu; Taiao; Whai Rawa.

Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu^[16]

Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu promotes six tribal values and one tribal vision that form Ngāi Tahu values. The Te Rūnanga Group is also guided by these same values and vision, with the reflected behaviours being slightly more detailed than for iwi members.

The Ngāi Tahu vision is:

Mō tātou, ā, mō kā uri, ā muri ake nei
For us and our children after us.

This serves as a reminder that the current generation’s role is to protect, nurture and make better our people and resources for the next generation.

The six iwi values are outlined below. Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu definitions vary from Barlow’s and Mead’s definitions.

• Whanaungatanga (family). We will respect, foster and maintain important relationships within the organisation, within the iwi and within the community.
• Manaakitanga (looking after our people). We will pay respect to each other, to iwi members and to all others in accordance with our tikanga (customs).
• Tohungatanga (expertise). We will pursue knowledge and ideas that will strengthen and grow Ngāi Tahu and our community.
• Kaitiakitanga (stewardship). We will work actively to protect the people, environment, knowledge, culture, language and resources important to Ngāi Tahu for future generations.
• Tikanga (appropriate action). We will strive to ensure that the tikanga of Ngāi Tahu is actioned and acknowledged in all of our outcomes.
• Rangatiratanga (leadership). We will strive to maintain a high degree of personal integrity and ethical behaviour in all actions and decisions we make.

In addition to these values, the corporate group has further interpreted them.

Manaakitanga (responsibility). Reflected in the following behaviours:

Tautoko

• Sharing time, knowledge and expertise
• Provides support to others
• Dedicates time to others
• Proactively coaches others

Manaaki

• Engages with others in a respectful manner
• Demonstrates the importance of relationships
• Engages others where guidance from others is necessary

Rangatiratanga (leadership). Reflected in the following behaviours:

Self-awareness

• Builds rapport with ease
• Demonstrates the ability to connect with people at all levels
• Demonstrates empathy

Integrity

• Demonstrates open and honest communication
• Demonstrates fairness
• Acts with integrity and puts benefits of the tribe before own agenda

Whanaungatanga (relationships). Reflected in the following behaviours:

Collaboration

• Works effectively within a team environment and across the Group
• Actively shares ideas
• Encourages others

Engagement

• Proactively seeks to extend networks within the wider iwi
• Takes steps to ensure they are well informed of issues and initiatives within the tribe

Tikanga (integrity). Reflected in the following behaviours:

Tikanga

• Demonstrates a desire to embrace te reo and tikanga
• Actively participates in tribal forums where appropriate

Dedication

• Demonstrates reliability
• Consistently delivers regardless of barriers
• Effectively prioritises

Tohungatanga (professionalism). Reflected in the following behaviours:

Strive for excellence

• Serves as a role model for others
• Sets goals to achieve high performance, encourages others to aspire to that level
• Delivers work to exceptional quality

Continuous learning

• Is proactive in seeking learning opportunities
• May teach others in a formal context
• Invests personal time in additional study

Kaitiakitanga (commitment). Reflected in the following behaviours:

Resourcefulness

• Demonstrates a consistent approach to careful expenditure of pūtea
• Looks for sustainable solutions when dealing with providers/suppliers

Innovation

• Regularly thinks outside the square
• Demonstrates the ability to turn ideas into reality
• Contributes novel ideas

Kāti Huikai

Kāti Huikai is a hapū/rūnanga of Ngāi Tahu situated in Port Levy on Banks Peninsula. Note the difference in values from the iwi corporate.

• Rakatirataka – Our leaders must be strong and act to develop self-determination for the Rūnaka.
• Manaakitaka – We must care about our people and have empathy and respect for others’ mana.
• Mātauraka – We must bring confident knowledge and application of expertise towards the outcomes of the Rūnaka.
• Kaitiakitaka – We must work actively to protect the environment, knowledge, culture, language and resources important to the Rūnaka for future generations.
• Whakapapa – We must understand and acknowledge the interconnectedness of people, place and environment. We also acknowledge whakapapa as the reason to ensure unity of purpose and outcomes for the Rūnaka.
• Tikaka – We must maintain a high degree of personal integrity aligned to the Rūnaka’s cultural protocols, understand the ever-evolving nature of tikaka and do what is right.
• Whanaukataka – We must have two-way connectivity and investment in all relationships important to the Rūnaka.

Indigenous data sovereignty

Indigenous (general)

This is a term predominantly used in data sovereignty by and for Indigenous Peoples and their tribes in the United States of America.

In 2020, 574 Indian tribes were legally recognised by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) of the United States. It is estimated that more than 400 are not federally recognised.

Indigenous data

Indigenous data is defined here as data in a wide variety of formats, inclusive of digital data and data as knowledge and information. It encompasses data, information and knowledge about Indigenous individuals, collectives, entities, lifeways, cultures, lands and resources.

Indigenous data sovereignty

Indigenous Data Sovereignty (IDS) is defined as the right of an Indigenous nation to govern the collection, ownership and application of data generated by its members. This is primarily an American Indigenous Peoples definition.

Indigenous Data Sovereignty is an international term that arose from the implications of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), adopted in 2007, for the collection, ownership and application of data pertaining to Indigenous Peoples, and what these might mean for Indigenous Peoples’ sovereignty.

Alaska Native/Inuit data sovereignty

In 2020, there were 231 Native Alaskan/Inuit tribes legally recognised by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) of the United States. It appears that Alaska Natives/Inuit use the Indigenous Data Sovereignty Principles, and there is no formal network. There is an interesting read from an Alaskan Native/Inuit perspective here.

Hawai’i

The Indigenous Peoples of Hawai’i are referred to by a number of terms. Hawai’i and Kānaka Hawai’i are the two terms that are translated as “Hawaiian” for “native”. There are several other terms: “Maoli, ʻŌiwi, Kamaʻāina, Kupa, Keiki papa, Kulaiwi, Keiki hānau o ka ʻāina, Ewe hānau o ka ʻāina” (Pukui, 1986).

Over time, the terms “Kānaka Māoli and Kānaka ʻŌiwi have evolved as the popular Hawaiian terms for Native Hawaiian” (McGregor & MacKenzie, 2014). “Politically, the distinction between Native Hawaiians and non-Native Hawaiians did not become significant until the Kingdom of Hawai’i allowed foreigners to become naturalized citizens and subjects of the Kingdom” (McGregor & MacKenzie, 2014).

Native Hawai’i data sovereignty

“Data sovereignty” refers to indigenous peoples’ right to reclaim the purpose and value of data that is collected, analyzed and used by and for their communities. Within the dominant western deficiency approach, data often focuses on disparities and damaged people. Native Hawaiians, among others, need to be at the table to determine how data can document their true wellbeing, illustrate their many strengths and successes, and be used to invest public resources in effective services and supports. https://www.hibudget.org/blog/presenting-data-sovereignty-disaggregation-state-capitol

First Nations (Canada)

“First Nation is one of three groupings of Indigenous people in Canada, the other two being Métis and Inuit. Unlike Métis and Inuit, most First Nations hold reserve lands, and members of a First Nation may live both on and off these reserves. While the term First Nation can describe a large ethnic grouping (e.g. the Cree Nation), in other cases it is synonymous with the term band, a word originally chosen by the federal government and used in the Indian Act. The word band describes smaller communities. Many First Nations prefer the term First Nation over band”.

In 2016, 1,673,785 people in Canada identified themselves as Aboriginal, making up 4.9 percent of the total population [24]. Of those, 977,230 (58.4 percent) were First Nations, 587,545 (35.1 percent) were Métis, and 65,025 (3.9 percent) were Inuit [24]. First Nations people accounted for 2.8 percent of the total population of Canada. According to the federal government there are currently 636 recognised Indian bands in Canada. https://content.iospress.com/articles/statistical-journal-of-the-iaos/sji180478#ref025

Aboriginal Peoples, regardless of status and residency, have a special constitutional relationship with the Crown, including existing Aboriginal and treaty rights, which is recognised and affirmed in section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982. As described above, in this Act, “Aboriginal peoples of Canada” includes the Indian, Inuit and Métis peoples of Canada. Following Canada’s support of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) in 2010, the federal and provincial governments, as well as many Aboriginal groups and organisations, have moved to support the use of the term Indigenous rather than Aboriginal.

What is First Nations Canada data sovereignty?

OCAP® acknowledges and respects that the right of self-determination of First Nations includes the jurisdiction and authority to make decisions about research in their communities. It addresses issues of privacy, intellectual property, data custody and secondary use of data. OCAP® was conceived as a result of First Nations interest in protecting their data and information, the legacy of unethical research practices, and the desire to have control over research in their communities [Source].

What is First Nations Canada data?

First Nations data, “when developed, gathered, and used correctly, provides First Nations with a way to bring evidence to issues that could have otherwise been ignored. When communities become their own data stewards, they can take on a leading role in the direction of their community wellbeing and in the very definition of that well-being” [Source]. It is essential for research to “be integrated with cultural and traditional knowledge, such as Indigenous languages an history, so that the policy narrative is framed in a meaningful and relevant way” [Source].

Other First Nations data sovereignty initiatives

• Alberta First Nations Information Governance Centre (AFNIGC)
• Chiefs of Ontario and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) – Data Governance Agreement
• British Columbia First Nations Data Governance Initiative

I acknowledge the following article for the source and quotes for this section: https://content.iospress.com/articles/statistical-journal-of-the-iaos/sji180478

First Nations data sovereignty

A vision that every First Nation will achieve data sovereignty in alignment with their distinct worldview, as an inherent right and as a transformational requisite to further advance self-determination and self-governance, and to enable the transfer of community service delivery back to First Nations governments (as dictated by rights holders).

This is guided by the following nine pillars:

• Pillar 1, First Nations Data Governance
• Pillar 2, First Nations Digital Infrastructure and Human Resources
• Pillar 3, Rights Holders Relationship Management
• Pillar 4, First Nations Data Access and Repatriation
• Pillar 5, First Nations Data Collection, Discovery and Gap Bridging
• Pillar 6, First Nations Data Standards and Intergovernmental Interoperability
• Pillar 7, First Nations Data Management
• Pillar 8, First Nations Data Trust, Ethics, and OCAP® implementation
• Pillar 9, Data Relationship Management with Other Levels of Governments and Partners

Saami

Sápmi (also Sábme/Sábmie/Saepmie, depending on the Sami language) is situated in the northern parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. The size of the Sami population is estimated at between 75,000 and 120,000. The Saami are still identifying and discussing how best to define procedures for the protection of their ethnic data, according to this article.

Pasifika

Pasifika (sometimes spelt Pasefika) is used to refer to the people, cultures and languages of Pacific groups (including Sāmoa, Tonga, the Cook Islands, Niue, Tokelau, Tuvalu and other smaller Pacific nations) who are now living in New Zealand. https://pasifika.tki.org.nz/LEAP/Pasifika-in-New-Zealand

Pacific data is:

A living taonga that reflects and derives from our history, presents realities and future aspirations.

Pacific data considers and values the history of Pacific information, knowledge and data. It ought to be conceptualised and understood from emic insider Pacific perspectives, therefore within Pacific frameworks. Further, for some, data can only be categorically ‘Pacific’ if collated, analysed, accessed, managed and shared by Pacific peoples through a Pacific lens. This upholds the cultural filter that is embedded in traditional values and knowledge systems.

Pacific data sovereignty is:

‘Nothing is about Us – Pacific Peoples – without us – Pacific Peoples.’

Pacific Data Sovereignty acknowledges that diversity exists across Pacific peoples and cultures. Even so, across the unique differences, there are elements and ties that unify us as the People of the Moana. Pacific Data Sovereignty is understanding our ancestral heritage while upholding the ethos that ‘Nothing is about Us – Pacific Peoples – without us – Pacific Peoples.’ This ensures that the lineage of Pacific Data paves its paths and linkages back to Pacific ancestors and the generations following to present-day Pacific peoples (Moana Research & Ministry for Pacific Peoples, 2019).

The capacity and capability of our Pacific peoples to obtain governance over their own data will be transformative for decision making, policy, systems change, the privileging of our voices and frameworks in spaces that may have traditionally resisted it or misrepresented our stories and perspectives (Moana Research & Ministry for Pacific Peoples, 2019).

Beyond the transformations, it is the right of Pacific Peoples to take ownership over their own data, what happens to it, how it is collated, used, analysed, presented and disseminated.

As the world moves increasingly to open data environments, which are subject to the laws of the nation in which data is stored, Pacific Data Sovereignty is both a welcomed challenge and an aspiration, where the network will advocate for ‘Our Data, Our Sovereignty, Our Future.’

Pacific data matters as it may detail the problems we face as Pacific, but also emergent from it are the solutions that will be effective. This is reminiscent of the Samoan proverb e fofo e le alamea le alamea: the solutions lie within our communities.

Pacific data sovereignty needs, but will also construct, social connectedness between communities, organisations and agencies. The unifying of Pacific people, followed by identifying and playing on the strengths of each person and group, will enable progress.

Pacific data sovereignty is therefore focused on:

• Rights and responsibilities to determine the means of collection, access, analysis, management and dissemination of Pacific data or data deriving from Pacific data, inclusive of historical, existing and impending datasets.
• Producing information from and/or about Pacific peoples that is driven by epistemologies, Pacific cultural values and Pacific traditional knowledge systems, and that Pacific people maintain these.
• Pacific peoples’ understanding of what data exists, the sources, access pathways, data management, the purpose of collection, how it was used and will be used in future. This will allow for Pacific stewardship of data that is enhancing and not destroying the vitality and wellbeing of Pacific communities and families.
• Acknowledging the source of knowledge and from where data derives. Strategic and legal recognition of the Pacific as stewards of the interests that the data represents. This may entail authority and ownership of data about Pacific, Pacific values and Pacific interests. Ergo, data is curated and cared for by Pacific people.

Australia

Indigenous Australians or Australian First Nations consist of two distinct groups: the Aboriginal peoples of the Australian mainland and Tasmania, and the Torres Strait Islander Peoples. There are about 500 different tribes with their own clans in Australia, each with their own language and territory.

Australian tribal-focused Indigenous data sovereignty

In recent years, Indigenous Peoples in Australia and Pacific Peoples have recognised the need to create principles and definitions to claim their own sovereignty of data.

Pacific people are a unique population within Aotearoa New Zealand and across the diaspora. They are often and consistently researched. The framings and findings about Pacific Peoples have significantly been portrayed through a deficit framework and etic ‘outsider’ perspectives (Tualaulelei & McFall-McCaffery, 2019).

Australian Indigenous data sovereignty is:

The Maiam nayri Wingara Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Data Sovereignty Collective have created their own definitions and principles that again differ from Indigenous, Māori and Pacific Peoples.

Australian Indigenous Data Sovereignty refers to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ inherent right to govern their communities, resources and Country (including lands, waters and sky). It is the right of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to exercise ownership over Indigenous data. Ownership of data can be expressed through the creation, collection, access, analysis, interpretation, management, dissemination and reuse of Indigenous data.

Australian Indigenous Data Governance protocols and principles are the right of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to:

• Exercise control of the data ecosystem including creation, development, stewardship, analysis, dissemination and infrastructure.
• Data that is contextual and disaggregated.
• Data that is relevant and empowers sustainable self-determination and effective self-governance.
• Data structures that are accountable to Indigenous peoples and First Nations.
• Data that is protective and respects our individual and collective interests.

Exercising Indigenous Data Governance enables Indigenous peoples and their representative or governing bodies to accurately reflect their stories. It provides the necessary tools to identify what works, what doesn’t work, and why. Effective Indigenous Data Governance empowers Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to make the best decisions to support their communities and people in the ways that meet their developmental needs and aspirations.

New Zealand Māori

Māori data

Māori, as with many other Indigenous Peoples, are one with the land and the water. Without the natural resources we are not Indigenous Peoples. History, customs and knowledge bind us together in a complex genealogical hierarchy.

Māori custom does not see a difference between our land and our data. Our data has the same sort of connections as land does, but it is just a different format. To protect our data, we need to recognise that it is collectively owned by whānau, hapū, iwi and Māori organisations. No one individual can or should own our data. No non-Māori individual or group can own Māori data.

There are also the cultural considerations of the origins of the data, the mauri of the data, what rights the person who gave that data has, and what rights they actually give the person or organisation collecting it. This also creates issues about Māori data about the living being stored with Māori data about the dead.

Māori Data is:

Datum, data, information or knowledge in any format or medium, which is about, from, is produced by Māori Peoples, whānau, hapū, iwi or Māori organisations either collectively or individually, describes Māori Peoples, whānau, hapū, iwi and Māori organisations and their environments, has relationships with, or is made by Māori Peoples, whānau, hapū, iwi and Māori organisations or contains any Māori Peoples, whānau, hapū, iwi and Māori organisations content or association or may affect Māori, whānau, hapū, iwi and Māori organisations. Māori Data are a living taonga and are of strategic value to Māori Peoples, whānau, hapū, iwi and Māori organisations (Taiuru, 2020).

Māori data sovereignty

Māori Data Sovereignty refers to the inherent rights and interests Māori, whānau, hapū, iwi and Māori organisations have in relation to the creation, collection, access, analysis, interpretation, management, dissemination, re-use, and control of data relating to Māori, whānau, hapū, iwi and Māori organisations as guaranteed in Article II of Te Tiriti/Treaty of Waitangi (Taiuru, K. 2020).

This definition is the umbrella definition of Māori Data Sovereignty and should be adapted depending on the circumstances, with consideration of whānau, hapū, marae, rōpū and iwi.

The above definition firstly recognises the Te Tiriti commitment by the Crown to Māori, and that the term iwi is a post-colonial construct grouping whānau, individuals, marae and other groups under the one heading.

The above definition also reflects that WAI 262, which set the foundation for data as a taonga, was lodged by individuals who were experts in tikanga and mātauranga Māori, and that communications with their individual descendants are occurring with the Crown.

The definition also reflects that the WAI 2522 TPPA claim, which addressed Māori data, recognised that some Māori data contains mātauranga (see WAI 2522 below).

Other data sovereignty terms

There are a number of other digital sovereignty principles that are internationally applied, including the following, which all relate directly to Māori Data Sovereignty.

Data sovereignty

Data sovereignty relates to the laws and governance structures that data is subject to, due to the geographical location of where it is processed.

Operational sovereignty

Operational sovereignty (often called “digital sovereignty”) is where the state has full independence and operational control over its digital technology and infrastructure (Doug Dixon). An example is the use of American-owned servers and software that make data vulnerable to international governments, such as:

• Section 702 of the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA 702), which permits the US government to conduct targeted surveillance of foreign (ie, non-US) persons located outside the US in order to acquire “foreign intelligence information.” Under Section 702, the US Attorney General and Director of National Intelligence may issue directives compelling US electronic communication service providers (ECSPs) to provide such information (Doug Dixon).

Software sovereignty

Software sovereignty means running workloads without dependence on a provider’s software, for example by using local software and hardware. This is another important aspect of Māori Data Sovereignty.

Residence data sovereignty

Data residency refers to the geographical location of data.

Digital colonialism

Some basic principles of digital colonisation are below. Essentially, the Treaty principles and full disclosure of why you want to digitise the data, what the impacts are, biases, benefits, ownership issues and so on all need to be considered. Otherwise, there is a risk of biased data that could discriminate against Māori or break trust and relationships^[17].

• Digital colonialism deals with the ethics of digitising Indigenous data and information without fully informed consent.
• Digital colonialism is the new deployment of a quasi-imperial power over a vast number of people, without their explicit consent, manifested in rules, designs, languages, cultures and belief systems by a vastly dominant power (Renata Avila, 2017).
• A new form of imperialism by technology conglomerates for commercial gains, and by academics and researchers to advance science, technology and research (Taiuru, 2017).
• Data colonialism is an emerging order for the appropriation of human life so that data can be continuously extracted from it for profit (Ulises A. Mejias & Nick Couldry, 2019).

Definition

• A dominant culture enforcing its power and influence onto a minority culture to digitise knowledge that is traditionally reserved for different levels of a hierarchical closed society, or information that was published with the sole intent of remaining in the one format, such as radio or print.
• A blatant disregard for the ownership of the data and the digitised format, or its dissemination.
• Digital data that becomes the topic of data sovereignty.
• Digital and knowledge workers who consult Indigenous Peoples to digitise their content and then digitise the content, but who fail to explain the power of technology and the risks, including losing all intellectual property rights.
• Conglomerates and government who use their influence to digitise data without consultation.
• A colonial view and approach to new Internet technologies such as new generic top-level domain names (gTLDs) and country code top-level domain names (ccTLDs).
• Digital access where an ethnic minority are the majority of digital divide stakeholders, often while their knowledge and resources are being digitised.
• Commercialisation of minority cultures’ ccTLDs.
• Commercial entities paying translators to create new terminology for software and systems, then claiming ownership of the new terminology.
• Manipulation of search engine results to hide or change traditional knowledge.

Legal instruments

He Whakaputanga: Declaration of Independence 1835

He W[h]akaputanga o te Rangatiratanga o Nu Tireni is also known as the Declaration of Independence of New Zealand. This Māori-language document is often called by its shortened name, He Whakaputanga. Translated, it can mean ‘an emergence’, referring to the birth of a new nation, Nu Tireni – New Zealand – but also marking steps towards unified forms of governance among the many different rangatira and their hapū and iwi (Waitangi Tribunal, 2014, pp. 153–154).

Thirty-four northern Māori rangatira, representing 6 iwi in the far North (Ngāti Kahu, Te Rarawa, Ngāti Wai, Te Roroa, Ngāti Wai, Ngā Puhi) and 44 hapū, signed the Declaration on 28 October 1835. They became known as the Confederation of United Tribes. By 22 July 1839 another 18 chiefs had signed. Two of these chiefs were from outside Northland: Te Hāpuku of Hawke’s Bay (Ngāti Te Whatuiāpiti, Ngāti Kahungunu, Rangitāne, Ngāti Ira, Hapū Ngāti Rangikoiānake) and Te Wherowhero, the Waikato Tainui ariki who was to become the first Māori King in 1858. This document became known as the codicil. The codicil explained that the rangatira who signed had not been able to attend the gathering because of floods and other reasons, but that they fully supported the declaration of independence of Nu Tireni and entered into the confederation of chiefs.

The Declaration arose in response to concerns over the lawlessness of British subjects in New Zealand, and in response to a fear that France would declare sovereignty over New Zealand. At this time a Frenchman, Charles de Thierry, who titled himself ‘Charles, Baron de Thierry, Sovereign Chief of New Zealand and King of Nuku Hiva’ (in the Marquesas Islands), was seeking to establish a colony on a 16,000-hectare (40,000-acre) plot of land he claimed to have purchased in the Hokianga (Fitzgerald, 2011, p. 61).

He Whakaputanga has often been considered no more than a minor prelude on the journey to the Treaty of Waitangi (Waitangi Tribunal, 2014, p. 195). Yet such a viewpoint considerably undersells He Whakaputanga. For one thing, it was British acknowledgement of the validity of the Declaration of Independence that made it necessary to seek a cession of sovereignty when the British government decided to intervene further in New Zealand in 1839.

The Crown had recognised the sovereign authority of the United Tribes of New Zealand and would need the agreement of those rangatira in order to alter that situation (Kawharu, 1989, p. 130).

This new sense of nationhood was still in its infancy at the time of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840. Yet for many Māori, the Treaty did not, and could not, erase the clear assertion of rangatiratanga – chiefly authority or sovereignty – made through He Whakaputanga. For that reason and others, He Whakaputanga remains a taonga of great significance today (O’Malley & Harris, 2017).

Many later movements looked to He Whakaputanga as a source of rights for Māori in the post-1840 world. The text of the document was published in Māori newspapers such as Te Wananga, was read aloud during gatherings of iwi at Ōrākei and Waitangi in the early 1880s, and was cited by Māori MPs and in petitions to Parliament as a basis for Māori claims to self-determination. Hōne Heke Ngāpua, the MP for Northern Māori, read the full text of He Whakaputanga in Parliament in 1894, for example, when introducing the second reading of his Native Rights Bill, an unsuccessful attempt to secure constitutional rights for Māori to administer their own affairs.

In May 1836 the British government acknowledged receipt of an English translation of He Whakaputanga, promising ‘those Chiefs such Support and Protection as may be consistent with a due Regard to the just Rights of others and to the Interests of His Majesty’s Subjects’ (Lord Glenelg to R. Bourke, 25 May 1836, Great Britain Parliamentary Papers, 1837–38 (680), p. 159).

Without He Whakaputanga there might have been no Treaty of Waitangi (O’Malley & Harris, 2017).

He Whakaputanga asserted that New Zealand was an independent Māori state, that power resided fully with Māori, and that foreigners would not be allowed to make laws.

He Whakaputanga was – and remains – proof that the rangatiratanga and mana of Māori had been clearly articulated and asserted. New Zealand had been a sovereign land under the authority of the united tribes before 1840; and, according to the Waitangi Tribunal, that sovereignty was not extinguished by the Treaty of Waitangi. The Treaty itself was another step in the ever-deepening alliance or covenant with Britain. And as later events made clear, Ngāpuhi expected that relationship to be maintained and reciprocated by the Crown after 1840.

The English draft of the document was written by James Busby and was translated into Māori by the missionary Henry Williams. Eruera Pare Hongi wrote the final copy in Māori, which was the version that was signed. There are vast differences between the two texts (O’Malley & Harris, 2017). The Waitangi Tribunal agreed that the reo Māori version of the declaration is the definitive version (Waitangi Tribunal, 2014, p. 198).

Article I

Declares that New Zealand is an independent state, with the chiefs of the United Tribes of New Zealand as its leaders.

This provides obligations to the tribes, hapū and whānau who were signatories to He Whakaputanga regarding data sovereignty, and the rights to exercise tikanga Māori and meaningful engagement with the Crown.

Article II

Declares that the signatory chiefs are solely responsible for making new laws and governments, and that no one else has the right to do so without the permission and cooperation of “The Sacred Confederation of Tribes of New Zealand” (Henare, 2003).

This states that sovereign power is held collectively by the chiefs of the United Tribes of New Zealand, providing the signatory tribes to He Whakaputanga the right to continually practise their own kaitiakitanga with Māori data.

Article III

Provides a commitment to meet each year at Waitangi to enact laws so that peace will prevail in New Zealand, and an invitation to southern tribes to join the confederation (Henare, 2003).

This provides the tribes with protection of their spiritual, cognitive, emotional and physical assets, including their own data. The tribes could have protected Māori data and its sovereignty through their own tikanga.

Article IV

Is an agreement that the King of England will receive a copy of the declaration to express the chiefs’ appreciation and for his approval of their flag. The chiefs also asked the King of England to be a parent to their infant state and protect it from all attempts on its independence (Henare, 2003).

This article highlights the amicable relationship Māori were seeking with the Crown, and how, in today’s society, the trade and exploitation of Māori data would not have occurred. There would have been proper consideration of tikanga by Māori chiefs.

Te Tiriti o Waitangi / The Treaty of Waitangi 1840

The Treaty of Waitangi is New Zealand’s founding document. It was first signed on 6 February 1840. The Treaty is an agreement, written in Māori and English, that was made between the British Crown and Māori chiefs. Its principles are given effect in New Zealand legislation by the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975.

The Treaty of Waitangi is one of the major sources of New Zealand’s constitution^[18]. It is an agreement entered into by representatives of the Crown and of Māori iwi (tribes) and hapū (sub-tribes). It is named after the place in the Bay of Islands where the Treaty was first signed, on 6 February 1840.

As with He Whakaputanga, the Treaty of Waitangi has a Māori version, which the Māori chiefs who were signatories discussed, debated and then signed; an English version, which differs; and a translation from Māori into English. All references to the Treaty here are to the Māori text, often and more correctly referred to as Te Tiriti.

The Treaty was not drafted as a constitution or a statute. It was a broad statement of principles upon which British officials and Māori chiefs made a political compact or covenant to found a nation state and build a government in New Zealand to deal with pressing new circumstances. Like many treaties, it is an exchange of promises between the parties to it. The Treaty creates a basis for civil government extending over all New Zealanders, on the basis of protections and acknowledgements of Māori rights and interests within that shared citizenry.

The Te Tiriti o Waitangi principles of partnership, participation and protection provide a framework for identifying Māori ethical issues, or tikanga, in terms of the rights, roles and responsibilities of researchers and Māori communities; the contribution that research makes towards providing useful and relevant outcomes; and addressing inequalities.

The Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975 is an Act to provide for the observance and confirmation of the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi by establishing a Tribunal to make recommendations on claims.

It is important to note that it is not only iwi who can make a claim to the Waitangi Tribunal for breaches of Te Tiriti, but any person of Māori descent, as individuals or as a collective (whānau, iwi, hapū and Māori organisations), claiming that an ordinance, Act, regulation, order, proclamation, notice or other statutory instrument, or a policy or practice, or an act or omission of the Crown has prejudicially affected the claimant(s), and that the law, action, omission, practice or policy is inconsistent with the principles of Te Tiriti.

Preamble

The Preamble of Te Tiriti suggests that the Queen’s main promises to Māori were to provide a government while securing tribal rangatiratanga (chiefly autonomy or authority over their own area) and Māori land ownership for as long as they wished to retain it. The Preamble sets the discussion point for Māori data sovereignty.

Article I

Promises Māori the ability to keep their authority to manage their own affairs in return for the promise of protection. This is the good governance and partnership aspect, and allows Māori to recognise that data is a taonga, and to claim data sovereignty to co-govern, co-manage, co-design and co-create digital systems that use Māori data and impact Māori.

Article II

Māori data sovereignty has its foundations in Article II of Te Tiriti/Treaty of Waitangi.

Article II of Te Tiriti states: “The Queen of England agrees to protect the chiefs, the subtribes and all the people of New Zealand in the unqualified exercise of their chieftainship over their lands, villages and all their treasures.” Māori were therefore guaranteed by the Crown the unqualified exercise of their chieftainship over their lands, villages and all their property and treasures. Māori data is a taonga. Māori have the right to undisturbed possession of their Māori data, to avoid exploitation, piracy, manipulation, sharing without consent, and being taken offshore without consultation.

In order to recognise Māori data sovereignty rights and be a good Treaty partner, it is essential that these principles are observed and respected in good faith.

By using these Treaty principles, a system will be less likely to use biased data, and the risk of a system negatively impacting Māori, even where the developers had the best of intentions, will be reduced.

Article III

The Crown promised Māori equal rights, thus allowing the preservation of the Māori people’s tikanga. Māori have inalienable rights to Māori data, as it contains whakapapa and mauri and is therefore a taonga. Researchers and governments have obligations to consult with Māori about Māori data.

Data governance, co-design and co-management principles

The Waitangi Tribunal has identified a number of core principles that have emerged from Tribunal reports and been applied to the varying circumstances raised by claims. These principles are often derived not just from the strict terms of the Treaty’s two texts, but also from the surrounding circumstances in which the Treaty agreement was entered into. These principles include, but are not limited to: Partnership, Reciprocity, Autonomy, Active protection, Options, Mutual benefit, Equity, Equal treatment and Redress.

Three principles commonly recognised by government, and first outlined by the Royal Commission on Social Policy (1988), are:

• Partnership: interactions between the Treaty partners must be based on mutual good faith, cooperation, tolerance, honesty and respect.
• Participation: this principle secures active and equitable participation by tangata whenua.
• Protection: government must protect whakapapa, cultural practices and taonga, including protocols, customs and language.

In 2019, the Waitangi Tribunal updated the principles to the following^[19]:

• Principle 1: Tino rangatiratanga
• Principle 2: Equity
• Principle 3: Active protection
• Principle 4: Partnership
• Principle 5: Options

All of the above principles should be considered and used when entering partnerships with Māori Peoples, whānau, hapū, iwi and Māori organisations when using Māori data. The principles are expanded in the section “Māori data sovereignty in practice”.

United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples 2007

It is imperative to consider the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, GA Res 61/295 (2007), which New Zealand officially endorsed in 2010.

UNDRIP is a comprehensive international human rights document on the rights of Indigenous Peoples. It sets out the minimum standards for the survival, dignity, wellbeing and rights of the world’s Indigenous peoples.

The Declaration’s emphasis on self-determination in articles 3–4 provides international support for the recognition of rangatiratanga in New Zealand. In addition, article 31 of the Declaration imposes a duty on States to assist in the protection of indigenous resources, including their “cultural heritage”, “traditional knowledge” and “human and genetic resources”. This aligns with the Treaty’s approach to taonga.

Its 46 articles cover all areas of human rights and interests as they apply to Indigenous Peoples. The following 21 articles are generally applicable to Indigenous data; depending on the data, there may be others. Articles of interest to Māori data are: 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 11, 15, 18, 19, 32, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45 and 46.

The Mataatua Declaration on Cultural and Intellectual Property Rights of Indigenous Peoples 1993

In recognition that 1993 was the United Nations International Year for the World’s Indigenous Peoples, the Nine Tribes of Mataatua in the Bay of Plenty Region of Aotearoa New Zealand convened the First International Conference on the Cultural and Intellectual Property Rights of Indigenous Peoples (12–18 June 1993, Whakatāne).

Over 150 delegates from fourteen countries attended, including Indigenous representatives from Ainu (Japan), Australia, the Cook Islands, Fiji, India, Panama, Peru, the Philippines, Surinam, the USA and Aotearoa.

The Mataatua Declaration has been the most comprehensive statement by Māori on cultural and intellectual property rights. It was presented to the United Nations and has been signed by 150 groups and nations.

This document and the Treaty of Waitangi have been critical in the cultural and intellectual property rights struggles for Māori.

The Mataatua Declaration states that Indigenous people are willing to share their knowledge with humanity provided their fundamental rights to define and control their knowledge are respected. Furthermore, Indigenous peoples are not anti-science or anti-development, but they do want the integrity of their life and cultural knowledge to be respected.

The Mataatua Declaration must be considered in all Māori data sovereignty engagements and research, at the very least when dealing with Māori data that has origins in the Mataatua region.

Data is a taonga: perspectives

Data is ‘the new oil’, and most new business models are being built around ownership of data; corporates are hoarding data and it is driving disparities across our societies (Walker, 2020). Data has become a commodity sought after by scientists and biotech companies, each hoping to collect enough data to seek out new knowledge in new ways in areas including health studies, ethnic identity, targeted medicines, insurance, and genetic modification of crops and species, including discussions of de-extinction (Cohen, 2014). Nowadays, public and private organisations understand the value of data. Data is a key asset to improve efficiency in today’s dynamic and competitive business environment (Oliveira, Rodrigues, & Henriques, 2005).

In 2020 the New Zealand Government released an Algorithm Charter for Aotearoa New Zealand. The Charter ignores Māori rights and Te Tiriti obligations, in direct contradiction to the Chief Data Steward’s comment in 2018^[20].

Individuals and organisations are discussing data being a taonga, yet there is confusion about what a taonga is and how data is a taonga. Some articles say only some data is a taonga. I do not believe there are any articles that consider a customary Māori view of data. Many published articles and references are academic texts that are hard to read yet do not state any customary views.

Many of the sections are brief, as each section constitutes years of knowledge and a Māori worldview that can never be adequately compressed into such a paper. However, the information in this section does cover some basics, albeit at a high level. This should create a platform from which to launch further research, debate and investigation.

Governments and commercial entities consider data to be important. Internationally, data has become a new commodity that is sold and traded on markets. In New Zealand, data is used for social and economic development, among other things. If the New Zealand government did not place a high value on the data it holds, it would be obliged not to retain or create the data.

Because of the western perspective that data is anonymous, the New Zealand government and other governments have treated data about their people and land as terra nullius. By digitising Māori data and information without permission or consultation, they have breached traditional Māori customary rights and beliefs. It is too late to prevent the digitisation and dissemination of taonga on the web and in digital repositories, but it is not too late to be considerate of customary rights and beliefs and to lessen any future impacts.

Consider the early colonisers of New Zealand, who normalised the practice of collecting human body parts such as heads. Society and government did not see anything wrong with this barbaric practice. It is no longer socially acceptable, and only recently has the repatriation of these human remains begun. With the same knowledge learnt from history, we must now contemplate how many years will go by until we repatriate our data.

Tīpuna Māori gave ethnographers tapu information for a paper medium created by metal plates. Its distribution was severely restricted to those who could purchase a book. Informants had no idea of the Internet, of information flow, or of the speed of that flow. Data today faces a similar fate. Virtual reality and artificial intelligence are future risks that will affect Māori data in ways whose potential impacts on Māori no one has yet realised.

What is a taonga?

Before discussing why data is a taonga, we need first to look at recognised definitions of the term taonga.

The term taonga defies any exhaustive definition. Summing up the findings of a number of Tribunal reports, the Tribunal stated in the Petroleum Report of 2003 (The Petroleum Report (WAI 796, 2003) at [5.3]):

• Though the term has a number of other more mundane meanings, successive carefully reasoned reports of the Tribunal over many years now have come to treat ‘taonga’, as used in the Treaty, as a tangible or intangible item or matter of special cultural significance.
• The courts have also acknowledged that the status of taonga applies to the tangible and intangible, accepting both language and familial organisation as examples of intangible taonga. In respect of language, see New Zealand Māori Council v Attorney-General HC Wellington CP942/88, 3 May 1991; New Zealand Māori Council v Attorney-General [1987] 1 NZLR 641 (CA) and [1994] 1 NZLR 513 (PC); in respect of familial organisation, see Barton-Prescott v Director-General of Social Welfare [1997] 3 NZLR 179 at 184.
• Lord Woolf of the Privy Council followed the approach of the Court of Appeal as well as the Tribunal in the final Broadcasting Assets decision, stating: The Māori language (Te Reo Māori) is in a state of serious decline. It is an official language of New Zealand, recognised as such by the Māori Language Act 1987. It is “a highly prized property or treasure (taonga) of Māori” (Cooke P [1992] 2 NZLR 576, at p 578 in the Court of Appeal) and it is also part of the national cultural heritage of New Zealand. New Zealand Māori Council v Attorney General [1994] 1 NZLR 513 (PC) at 513.
• New Zealand courts have also discussed the notion that taonga may not necessarily be held by Māori, made by Māori or hold any Māori content or association. See Jacinta Ruru’s discussion of the cases of Page v Page (2002) 21 FRNZ 275 and Perry v West HC Auckland CIV-2002-404-002114, 15 December 2003 in Jacinta Ruru “Taonga and Family Chattels” [2004] NZLJ 297.

The definitions of a taonga used by the Waitangi Tribunal mean that any taonga is protected under the guarantees in article 2 of the Māori text of the Treaty of Waitangi, which states:

The Queen of England agrees to protect the chiefs, the subtribes and all the people of New Zealand in the unqualified exercise of their chieftainship over their lands, villages and all their treasures. But on the other hand the Chiefs of the Confederation and all the Chiefs will sell land to the Queen at a price agreed to by the person owning it and by the person buying it (the latter being) appointed by the Queen as her purchase agent.

Māori world view

All Māori are born with whakapapa, but not all Māori are Māori practitioners. There is no one Māori world view, just as there is no one New Zealander world view. Māori are diverse as a people.

Māori societal structure is made up of descendants from the original waka that arrived in New Zealand, then whānau, who make up larger hapū, who are associated with larger iwi. Each whānau, hapū and iwi has its own lore and values, though not so dissimilar as to be totally foreign to each other. StatsNZ recognise 137 iwi. There are no records of how many hapū exist. According to Tūhono, Ngā Puhi have about 278 hapū^[21]. Ngāi Tahu have 136 hapū^[22].

Mead (2016) asserts that in 1979 it was obvious that few people really understood tikanga, and this included our own people. Timoti Karetu also lamented the loss of kawa on the marae in 1978 when he stated “it is more important to take a stand now and rescue what we can from those few kaumatua still living before they take their knowledge with them to the grave” (King, 1978).

The loss of traditional knowledge, tikanga and kawa is likely due to the fact that Māori culture has been integrated into European culture for around 200 years through colonisation, intermarriage, introduced and forced religion, urbanisation, legislation, educationalists encouraging the move away from Māori culture, and government-imposed assimilation.

There have also been around 200 years of heavy missionary influence, introducing new religions that taught that Māori religious beliefs were bad. Many Māori adapted to these new religions, leaving behind their traditional knowledge systems and beliefs. Māori had many forced intermarriages into other cultures through the colonisation process. There were also customary intermarriages between hapū and iwi.

A common argument against tikanga and customary rights is that they are no longer relevant. The same is often said of the Holy Bible and religion. Others believe that the Treaty of Waitangi is also obsolete in this age (Archie, 1995). Tikanga and the Treaty of Waitangi are both relevant and are unique building blocks for modern-day New Zealand society. For many Māori, traditional tikanga is still applicable and highly relevant, though for some it is just instinct that cannot be described.

It is not uncommon for governance appointments to select a Māori simply because they are Māori, with no regard to whether they are a practitioner or not. This has long been an issue in all aspects of Māori society. When appointees disagree with other Māori, it is considered infighting or tribal, with no consideration of the diversity of Māori society.

Another modern-day issue in Māori consultation is when the consultants have alternative interests. They will challenge traditional knowledge views and bow to social peer pressure to say what the organisation wants to hear, thus securing a contract and future relationships.

In 1986, the Waitangi Tribunal’s report on Claim WAI 11 found that the Māori language is a taonga guaranteed by Article II. The WAI 11 claim was the foundation for the Māori Language Act 1987, later repealed by section 48 of Te Ture mō Te Reo Māori 2016 (the Māori Language Act 2016).

The Māori Language Act 1987 gave official language status to the Māori language and gave speakers a right to use it in legal settings such as courts. It also established the Māori Language Commission, initially called Te Komihana mō te Reo Māori, to promote the language and provide advice on it.

Any data that contains the Māori language is further reinforced as a taonga, and such considerations are required for Māori data and its sovereignty.

Māori academics have institutional boundaries they must work within. Western sciences and knowledge institutions do not recognise traditional knowledge, so how do Māori academics publish material about tikanga and mātauranga Māori?

Cooper (2012) states that Māori knowledge has been cast by Western science into an epistemic wilderness, and Māori are regarded as producers of culture rather than knowledge.

The position of Kaupapa Māori is paradoxical. It must stand aloof from the concerns of science and centre Māori epistemologies as a starting point for research. At the same time, it must critically engage Western knowledge and production practices as part of its decolonising and transformational strategy (Cooper, 2012).

For an organisation to get a balanced Māori world view, an advisory group needs to be a mixture of Māori: not geographically diverse, but knowledge based. There needs to be traditional Māori knowledge mixed with academia, and end users who are all Māori practitioners.

Māori cosmology includes a story about data and why it is a taonga. This is a basis for data today being a taonga. The story varies slightly depending on the iwi, so this summarises the traditional knowledge.

In the heavens were three baskets of knowledge that contained all the knowledge for human beings. Tāne, one of the many sons of Rangi and Papa, was sent to bring the baskets back to earth. Tāne was attacked by his evil brother Whiro, who wanted the knowledge for himself. But Tāne and goodness fought off the attacks.

These baskets, in today’s terms, would be data storage pertaining to all things in life. This traditional knowledge gives data a whakapapa. Anything with whakapapa is a taonga.

Whakapapa in its simplest sense is genealogy; in a wider sense, whakapapa attempts to impose a relationship between an iwi and the natural world. Moreover, whakapapa is a metaphysical framework constructed to place oneself within the world (Tau, 2003). Whakapapa is one of the most prized forms of knowledge, and great efforts are made to preserve it (Barlow, 1991, p. 174).

Traditional knowledge also tells us that every natural object and living thing has a spiritual aspect. If we sit down, our mauri sits down with us, and some mauri can be left behind if not considered. Likewise, a photograph of us contains the mauri of the person. Hence, photos of the dead are tapu.

Indigenous data has mauri, wairua and whakapapa (Taiuru, 2015b). Data is no different. If it is about a person, their mauri is associated with the data. Therefore, any data and recorded information is a taonga because of these Indigenous beliefs.

Mauri: in te ao Māori, information is tapu and contains the tapu of the person it is about. Once you learn new knowledge it becomes a part of your mauri. Hence knowledge was not always provided and could not always be provided. Because of this, knowledge has been taken by academics and governments without permission.

Another traditional Māori belief is that if information is copied or made electronic, then the person involved can become sick or cursed. This is further complicated when the data mixes data about both the living and the dead.

John Rangihau explains the process of gathering and learning new information:

I talk about mauri and some people talk about tapu. Perhaps the words are interchangeable. If you apply this life force to all things – inanimate and animate – and to concepts, and give each concept a life of its own, you can see how difficult it appears for older people to be willing and available to give out information. They believe it’s a part of them, part of their own life force, and when they depart they are able to pass this whole thing through and give it a continuing character. Just as they are proud of being able to trace their genealogy backwards, in the same way they can continue to send the mauri of certain things forward (King, 1978).

Some Māori will say data has no mauri because it is anonymised. But consider a Māori world view and the statement from John Rangihau above: because data originated from a person, people or other living thing in the Māori world, the data does have a mauri. Through an Indigenous lens, data is only anonymised in a western sense, unless a tapu removal ceremony has been correctly performed on the data. That would raise other issues, such as who has the authority to do it and how such rites are performed in a digital environment. Therefore, a system which holds Māori data must also become tapu, as it contains the mauri of the people and things contained in the data and information.

Because data has a mauri, the whakapapa of the data should be recorded, not because it is a system requirement or law, but because it is Indigenous. The responsibility is on the data collector to record where the data came from, what the data is about, iwi and hapū connections, and kaupapa Māori categories for metadata, and to treat the data with respect.

Māori society was always, and still is to a large extent, a knowledge society, with experts in sciences, religion, astronomy, navigation, spirituality, arts, knowledge, history, medicines, social issues and many more disciplines.

Traditional Māori society was hierarchical, with a myriad of rules and a justice system for breaking those rules. One of those rules was that knowledge and information were only to be shared under strict circumstances, within an acknowledged hierarchy of appropriate people ascertained by genealogy, who underwent long and strict initiations within learning schools in their own clan or tribe, where specific people were trained in certain knowledge areas.

It is a customary belief that when you share knowledge with people, the person with whom you share information then acquires a spiritual part of you. From a western perspective, if you imagine a thought of a person in your mind, you have no control of that thought existing. No one else can see it, but you know it is in your brain and a part of you. Therefore, from a customary Māori perspective, Māori data contains wairua and mauri, becomes a form of whakapapa, and therefore becomes sacred or tapu.

Likewise, once Māori data is in a system, that system becomes part of the people the data is about. An AI system has many more cultural complications.

In New Zealand the government and museums are aware of the need to repatriate physical property, but it is still not understood that data is property, and therefore no different.

This is the reason Māori data is a taonga, as stated in Article II of Te Tiriti/Treaty. From a western perspective, Māori data is also property and a commodity, and therefore all principles of Te Tiriti are applicable.

Government views of data as a taonga

The New Zealand Government Chief Data Steward’s Data Strategy and Roadmap for New Zealand (2018) makes statements that allude to the importance of data and refer to data being a taonga (Steward, 2018)^[23]. Among other things, the roadmap states:

Two Māori values in particular will support a trusted data system: manaakitanga (data users show mutual respect) and Kaitiakitanga (all New Zealanders become the guardians of our taonga by making sure that all data uses are managed in a highly trusted, inclusive, and protected way).

Other statements from the Roadmap that reinforce that data is a taonga recognised by government:

• We envisage a future where data is regarded as an essential part of New Zealand’s infrastructure.
• Our ambition is to unlock the value of data for the benefit of New Zealanders.
• The value of data lies in its use.
• The availability of new data sets and sophisticated technologies has enabled new and exciting data uses that continue to transform how individuals see, act, and engage with the world.
• Data fuels the digital economy, modernising our way of life and enabling innovation across industries and sectors.
• We are increasingly seeing new uses of data that will impact our world in profound ways in the near future.
• The uptake in new technologies such as cognitive computing and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are enabling new and innovative data uses that continue to transform how individuals see, act and engage with the world.

Within the roadmap is another section called “Commitment to the Crown-Māori Treaty Partnership”. While there is a misunderstanding of the tikanga involved, it does form a good foundation to work upon.

New Zealand recognises the importance and value of the Treaty of Waitangi that establishes Māori as Partners with the Crown. There are new opportunities for the Crown to engage with Māori on the full breadth of issues in the current environment to ensure the Crown is meeting its Treaty obligations and supporting Māori to activate their full potential in a new world of possibility. Two Māori values in particular will support a trusted data system: manaakitanga (data users show mutual respect) and Kaitiakitanga (all New Zealanders become the guardians of our taonga by making sure that all data uses are managed in a highly trusted, inclusive, and protected way).

Big Data Open Data Taskforce, October 2018

The UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Privacy has engaged with Indigenous data sovereignty. The Special Rapporteur’s report on the work of the Big Data Open Data Taskforce in October 2018 explicitly addresses Indigenous data sovereignty and Indigenous Peoples’ inherent sovereignty over the data collected from them, about them and their resources, in paragraphs 52, 72, 73, 74 and 75 (Cannataci, 2018). It does so again in the 2019 report from the Special Rapporteur on the Protection and Use of Health-Related Data, where several definitions were also introduced (Cannataci, 2019).

WAI 2522^[24]

In 2020, the Waitangi Tribunal released its report on the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, WAI 2522.

While the claim was large and related to e-commerce and international trade, three Māori data experts, myself, Potaua Biasiny-Tule and Dr Donna Cormack, argued to the Tribunal that Māori data is a taonga.

The WAI 2522 TPPA claim recognised that some Māori data contains mātauranga. Mātauranga is not owned by an iwi but by individuals, marae, hapū and others, and is an Article II right recognising that Māori data is a collectively and/or individually owned property right of significant cultural, social, spiritual and economic value to Māori society. UNDRIP is also covered by this definition.

The Tribunal further recognised that issues of data sovereignty and the protection of mātauranga Māori in the digital domain are not matters that Māori can resolve alone.

Māori data sovereignty kaupapa Māori frameworks

Indigenous knowledge cannot be squeezed into a western framework. There are currently three frameworks that, together, consider all aspects of Māori data. There are also two further guidelines that should be considered, which are too large and comprehensive to add here.

• Tikanga Test (Mead, 2016)
• Te Whare Tapa Whā (Durie, 1984)
• Māori Data Ethical Framework (Taiuru, 2020)

The two further guidelines are:

• Crown Engagement with Māori Framework and Engagement Guidelines (Te Arawhiti, 2019)
• Treaty of Waitangi/Te Tiriti and Māori Ethics Guidelines for: AI, Algorithms, Data and IOT (Taiuru, 2020)

Tikanga is Māori custom; like common law, it is founded on long-accepted practices, traditional knowledge and religion, and it does not preclude new circumstances and needs as they arise. It has always been there because it is what works; it is what is good for the people and the environment.

Traditional knowledge, or tikanga, informs us that all living things have a mauri, wairua and whakapapa. Māori data has a mauri and whakapapa, as discussed in the previous section.

If data is being collected about Māori, whether anonymised (in a western technical context) or not, it still contains the individual’s mauri. That mauri has whakapapa to their personal wairua, whānau, hapū and iwi. Thus, Māori data is collectively owned data or metadata, and a taonga.

Tikanga Test

A framework using tikanga and mātauranga to assess contentious issues and find a Māori position on them was developed by Sir Hirini Moko Mead, to assist with possible breaches of tapu and to ascertain the risks (Mead, 2016). This test and the frameworks on this page should form the basis for any decision-making process involving Māori data.

Test 1: the tapu aspect

Tapu relates to the sacredness of the person. When evaluating ethical issues, it is important to consider whether there will be a breach of tapu and, if there is, whether the gain or outcome from the breach will be worth it.

Test 2: the mauri aspect

Mauri refers to the life essence of a person or object. In an ethical context, one must consider whether the mauri of an object or thing will be compromised, and to what extent.

Test 3: the take-utu-ea aspect

Take (issue), utu (cost), ea (resolution). Take-utu-ea refers to an issue that requires resolution. Once an issue or conflict has been identified, utu refers to a mutually agreed cost or action that must be undertaken to restore the issue and resolve it.

Test 4: the precedent aspect

This refers to looking back at previous examples of similar issues that have been resolved in the past. Precedent is used to determine appropriate action now.

Test 5: the principles aspect

This refers to a collection of other Māori principles or values that may enhance and inform an ethical debate.

For the purposes of these guidelines, the principles aspect can draw on values such as those in the Community-Up Model (manaakitanga, mana, tika and whanaungatanga) (Simon, Smith, Cram, University of Auckland, International Research Institute for Māori and Indigenous Education, 2001) or the Māori Data Ethical Model (Taiuru, 2018).

Te Whare Tapa Whā

The Māori philosophy of health is underpinned by four dimensions representing the basic beliefs of life.

Te Taha Hinengaro

This refers to psychological health, with a focus on emotions. It is understood that the mind and body are inseparable, and that communication through emotions is important and more meaningful than the exchange of words.

Our traditional knowledge teaches us that from the wairua comes the mauri, and from the mauri comes the hinengaro (mind). From the hinengaro comes health and mental wellbeing.

If our data and its mauri are being attacked or used inappropriately, as described in Te Taha Wairua, then the individual, whānau, hapū and iwi the data is about will have poor psychological health.

Te Taha Wairua

This refers to spiritual awareness. It is recognised as the essential requirement for health and wellbeing. It is believed that without spiritual awareness an individual can be lacking in wellbeing and therefore more prone to ill health. Wairua explores relationships with the environment, people and heritage.

In addition to the explanation for Te Taha Hinengaro, our traditional knowledge teaches us that all natural objects have a wairua and a mauri. If our mauri is healthy, then our wairua is intact and will make the natural object healthy. Moreover, if we touch something, share our thoughts or are involved with an event, then our mauri is left with that object or event.

The same is applicable to Māori data. Māori data contains the mauri of the individual, whānau, hapū and iwi. Therefore, any system that holds Māori data holds people’s mauri. If our data and mauri are being used for things we are not aware of, stored overseas, or held in culturally unsafe environments, then this will impact our wairua, which will in turn make the individual, whānau, hapū and iwi unhealthy.

Te Taha Tinana

This refers to physical health, growth and development as it relates to the body. It focuses on physical wellbeing and bodily care. Tinana suffers when a person is under emotional stress or is unwell. Pain in different parts of your body is tinana communicating what is going on, consciously or unconsciously.

Our traditional knowledge teaches us that we are what we consume, whether it is physical food or a mental thought (hinengaro). Some Māori refuse to eat pork as the domestic pig eats scraps; other Māori refuse to partake in certain conversations in order to protect their hinengaro. The same applies to data about us. If it is put into culturally unsafe physical environments and away from New Zealand, then this will have negative impacts on the individual, whānau, hapū and iwi.

Te Taha Whānau

This is the most fundamental unit of Māori society. Whānau are clusters of individuals descended from a fairly recent ancestor. Whānau may include up to three or four generations, and its importance will vary from one individual to the next. The beliefs, expectations or opinions of the whānau can have a major impact on the career choices that an individual makes.

This reminds us that data about Māori is not an individual ownership right, but one of communal ownership by the whānau, hapū and iwi. If one person is ill, or their wairua or mauri is not well, then the individual, whānau, hapū and iwi can all be impacted, depending on the circumstances, in the same manner as when Papatūānuku is ill, so are humans.

Informed consent and community-based consent about data are often required to ensure Te Taha Whānau is considered.

Te Wharenui

This is the symbol used to illustrate these dimensions of wellbeing. Just as each corner of the house must be strong and balanced to hold its structure, each dimension of wellbeing must be balanced for health to exist. The wharenui needs the whenua to be healthy and strong to be built upon and to remain strong for intergenerational use.

Te Whenua

Whenua is the genesis of all living things. Without the whenua we cannot have life, and cannot have oceans or the sky.

Māori have a direct genealogy to the whenua, as we are all descendants of the earth mother Papatūānuku. The soil we are tangata whenua on, Aotearoa, is our direct descent. Hence, if the soil is healthy, so are its descendants, us the tangata whenua.

It is a custom that when Māori are emotionally drained, unhealthy, need to think or have issues, they either go back to their home lands (tūrangawaewae) if they can, or go to a special physical place.

Māori data is no different. To ensure that the individuals, hapū or iwi that the data is about remain spiritually healthy, the data should remain with Papatūānuku. In terms of Māori data sovereignty, this requires that any Māori data must remain in Aotearoa.

Māori Data Ethical Framework (Taiuru, 2020)

To engage with te ao Māori, it is recognised that there is not one Māori view, due to the impacts of colonisation on Māori and the fact that the societal structure is clan based.

It is recognised that a te ao Māori perspective encompasses the physical, mental and spiritual, and recognises that everything in the natural world is interconnected, including data.

The following Māori Data Ethical Model uses the koru pattern, as in the Māori Ethics Model (Manuka, 1998). These principles recognise and respect a te ao Māori view. This framework does not override individual iwi and corporate iwi principles (see above for examples).

01 Kaitiakitanga

Guardianship, stewardship, trusteeship, trustee.

This tikanga (customary practice) could be applied by ensuring that the system will benefit the majority of Māori and iwi, as opposed to the risk that the objectives of the system are to the detriment of Māori, as the Tohunga Suppression Act and Native Schools Act were; and that all data produced, and findings, have customary Māori ownership principles applied and that the data is stored onshore. The use of the Tikanga Test could assist with this principle.

02 Kawanatanga

Rule, authority, governorship, province.

This tikanga (customary practice) could be applied by recognising the need for Māori representation on the governance, management and all critical building aspects of a system.

03 Kotahitanga

Unity, togetherness, solidarity, collective action.

This tikanga (customary practice) could be applied by not referring to “them and us”, and by recognising that Māori and iwi interests are also of benefit to all of New Zealand.

04 Manaakitanga

Hospitality, kindness, generosity, support – the process of showing respect, generosity and care for others.

This tikanga (customary practice) could be applied by ensuring that there are mutual benefits of a system to both Māori and non-Māori. When in doubt about risks versus benefits to Māori, the Tikanga Test could be applied.

05 Māoritanga

Explanation, meaning.

This tikanga (customary practice) could be applied by ensuring there is full disclosure of all algorithms and data, and that the intended and future outcomes of the system are discussed and explained in a manner that the Māori audience will understand, using plain English. When in doubt about risks versus benefits to Māori, the Tikanga Test could be applied.

06 Māramatanga

Enlightenment, insight, understanding, light, meaning, significance.

This tikanga (customary practice) could be applied by seeking Māori and iwi insights and information requirements that may be irrelevant to the organisation, but of paramount importance to Māori and iwi.

07 Rangatiratanga

Knowledge of and practice of the Treaty of Waitangi.

This tikanga (customary practice) could be applied by ensuring that a set of Māori ethical guidelines is created, and that an explicit Te Tiriti/Treaty clause is included and abided by.

08 Tohungatanga

Expertise, competence, proficiency.

This tikanga (customary practice) could be applied by ensuring that a thorough recruitment process is undertaken to contract expert Māori advisors with the relevant skills in te ao Māori and the applicable technologies to write, design and implement appropriate Māori ethics.

09 Wairuatanga

Spirituality.

This tikanga (customary practice) could be applied by recognising that data is a taonga that contains wairua and mauri, regardless of whether, from a western perspective, the data is anonymised; then applying the kaupapa Māori framework Te Whare Tapa Whā to ensure the wairuatanga of the people in the data is spiritually protected. When in doubt about risks versus benefits to Māori, the Tikanga Test could be applied.

10 Whanaungatanga

Relationship, kinship, sense of family connection – a relationship through shared experiences and working together which provides people with a sense of belonging. A close familial, friendship or reciprocal relationship.

This tikanga (customary practice) could be applied by recognising that individual, whānau, hapū and iwi rights (including legal and moral), risks and benefits are discussed and considered at each step of the life cycle of a system’s design. When in doubt about risks versus benefits to Māori, the Tikanga Test could be applied.

Māori data sovereignty in practice

Māori data sovereignty commitment statements

To assist organisations to make public statements that both recognise and enact the instruments that protect Māori interests in Māori data, all organisations should create public commitment statements that are committed to by the whole organisation.

Below are general examples of commitment statements that any organisation can adapt or use. The examples could be used as one commitment statement, or as individual statements. For organisations whose Māori communities only acknowledge He Whakaputanga – the Declaration of Independence – you could use the Te Tiriti statement and replace Te Tiriti with He Whakaputanga.

These commitment statements are a useful reminder to the organisation, staff and stakeholders that you have a genuine commitment to Māori cultural and Te Tiriti values. These documents should be created in consultation with your Māori stakeholders, or revised at a later date once relationships have been formed.

It is also important to understand that, in a post-Treaty settlement society, iwi who have settled are likely to be commercial entities with their iwi members as the shareholders. As such, many post-settlement iwi have their own values, which you should try to align with your organisation’s values. See the earlier section “Iwi corporates and hapū data sovereignty principles” for examples.

Te Tiriti commitment statement example

With this commitment statement, we express our commitment to the Treaty of Waitangi/Te Tiriti, the founding document of Aotearoa New Zealand. We acknowledge that Te Tiriti must be the foundation for our relationships with Māori Peoples, hapū, marae, Māori groups and iwi in the way we engage, design, operate and govern our data ecosystems.

Te Tiriti is the agreement which opened the door to, and acknowledged, tūrangawaewae, a place where one has rights of residence and belonging, for the first immigrants who represented the British Crown, and all those who followed. People from all cultural groups are included as Te Tiriti partners with Māori Peoples, hapū, marae, Māori groups and iwi and, as such, all New Zealanders have a role in upholding the rights and privileges of Māori as tangata whenua of Aotearoa.

To realise the promises of Te Tiriti, our relationship with Māori, hapū, marae, Māori groups and iwi will continue to evolve. As an organisation we are committed to self-reflection, and to how we can improve our understanding of and commitment to Te Tiriti. This approach and commitment enriches our organisation.

Incorporating Te Tiriti into our everyday work will include:

• improving our understanding of Te Tiriti and what it means to all of our staff
• learning more te reo Māori and using it when speaking and writing
• normalising tikanga Māori within our organisation
• identifying new ways to partner with Māori, hapū, marae, Māori groups and iwi within our individual roles.

The principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, as articulated by the Courts and the Waitangi Tribunal, provide the framework for how we will meet our obligations under Te Tiriti in our day-to-day work.

We honour our Te Tiriti statement through the principles of:

Principle 1: Recognition and protection of tino rangatiratanga
We guarantee to whānau, hapū, marae, iwi or other forms of organisation the right to exercise autonomy and self-determination to the greatest extent in the design and delivery of all of our data ecosystems and the protection of Māori data.

Principle 2: Equity
We commit to ensuring Māori data and ecosystems are not biased, and that they are truly representative of Māori. We commit to ensuring that Māori data is accessible to achieve equitable outcomes for Māori.

Principle 3: Active protection
We will act, to the fullest extent practicable, to achieve equitable data outcomes for Māori and to ensure the right to tino rangatiratanga. We will ensure that our agents and Te Tiriti partners have free, prior and informed consent.

Principle 4: Partnership
We recognise the need to be a good governor, and recognise and respect the status and authority of Māori to be self-determining in the governance, design, delivery and monitoring of data ecosystems and the protection of Māori data.

Principle 5: Options
We commit to creating and exploring how kaupapa Māori research and design methodologies can be adapted for all new system developments and Māori data projects.

United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) commitment statement example

Our organisation has a commitment to UNDRIP, with special consideration to the following articles that relate directly to Māori data and Māori data ecosystems: 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 11, 15, 18, 19, 32, 37, 38, 39.

Articles 1, 2, 3, 7, 8 and 9
We acknowledge these articles as also being Te Tiriti commitments and legal obligations of any citizen in New Zealand.

Articles 11, 12 and 15
As part of our commitment to data sovereignty principles, we acknowledge that Māori data is a taonga that has customary protocols associated with it. Our commitment to work with relevant Māori stakeholder groups will help us to understand these customs.

Article 16
When designing Māori data ecosystems, we will wherever possible offer the interface in te reo Māori, and associated promotional materials in at least English and Māori.

Article 21
We are committed to ensuring our data and data ecosystems do not discriminate against Māori. We do this by co-designing and engaging with Māori stakeholders.

Article 27
We recognise that the term Māori is a post-colonial term for the multi-represented Indigenous Peoples of New Zealand. As part of our commitment, we recognise whānau, hapū, iwi, marae and rōpū Māori sovereignty rights, and that there are different tikanga Māori associated with different types of data and data ecosystems. Most importantly, Māori data is on loan, and we are the current guardians of the data. Any data ecosystem may be considered sacred and also to have whakapapa.

Article 31
This will be recognised and respected through meaningful and transparent engagement with Māori stakeholders.

Article 39
Through our partnerships with Māori stakeholders, we will offer training and employment opportunities.

Mataatua Declaration commitment statement example

This statement is only applicable to iwi data that is sourced from, or uses Māori data from, the Mataatua waka.

We regard Māori data as intellectual and cultural property, and the rights to the Māori data remain with the Māori of the Mataatua area.

We will work with Mataatua Māori to co-design and co-create cultural ethics and beneficial outcomes for Māori of the Mataatua waka.

Māori data principles commitment statement example

Our commitments, organised under seven Māori data sovereignty values, are outlined below. They are commitment statements based on the pan-Māori data sovereignty principles, not the principles themselves.

Whakapapa | Record keeping

We recognise our Te Tiriti obligations, and that Māori data and the digital ecosystems that use Māori data are taonga. As a result, we will treat Māori data as a taonga and recognise that all data, whether digital or biological, identifiable or de-identified, has a whakapapa (genealogy) and a mauri (life force).

We commit to accurate metadata: providing information about the provenance of the data, the purpose(s) of its collection and the context of its collection, and identifying where possible the whānau, hapū, iwi, marae or other Māori organisation the data is from and represents.

We recognise that Māori Data Sovereignty does not encompass all of Māori society; therefore we also recognise, and will use, appropriate data sovereignty datasets and permissions that recognise the sovereignty of whānau, hapū, iwi, marae and other Māori groups.

Rangatiratanga | Authority

We acknowledge that Māori, whānau, hapū, iwi, marae and rōpū Māori have inherent rights to exercise control over Māori data and Māori data ecosystems. Therefore, we will appoint at least one Māori cultural representative to our governance structure and ensure that Māori, whānau, hapū, iwi, marae and rōpū Māori are engaged in the design process from the start.

All of our data and systems are stored on New Zealand servers. In cases where this is not practicable, we will engage in discussions with our Māori stakeholders in a transparent manner, to inform them of the location and to negotiate appropriate solutions.

Mātauranga Māori | Cultural values

We acknowledge that respecting Māori knowledge systems (mātauranga Māori) and processes is not only a matter of courtesy, but also a recognition that such knowledge can make a significant contribution to the design and implementation of data ecosystems. Our system developers will respect the intergenerational cultural property rights of Māori Peoples in relation to knowledge, ideas, cultural expressions and cultural materials (mātauranga Māori).

Whanaungatanga | Identity

All data that identifies benefits for, or the ability to empower, the tino rangatiratanga of Māori Peoples, hapū, marae, Māori groups and iwi will be shared with the relevant Māori Peoples and organisations. Among the tangible benefits that Māori Peoples, hapū, marae, Māori groups and iwi should be able to expect from a digital system project is the provision of information in a form that is useful and accessible.

Kotahitanga | Collective benefit

Data ecosystems shall be designed and function in ways that enable Māori Peoples, hapū, marae, Māori groups and iwi to derive individual and collective benefit. Where possible, we will train whānau, hapū, iwi, marae and other Māori stakeholders to use the system and to identify other benefits our systems can be used for.

Manaakitanga | Care and consideration

We will work with Māori stakeholders to ensure that systems do not generate bias against Māori Peoples, hapū, marae, Māori groups and iwi. Any biases that are identified will be addressed and used for positive outcomes.

Kaitiakitanga | Guardianship

We acknowledge that Māori data is not owned by us, but that we are long-term guardians of the data.

We recognise that all data and systems will be subject to the tikanga Māori principles associated with any taonga. All Māori data will be stored in New Zealand by New Zealand-owned companies, and preferably in open-source technologies.

Hosting

Many of the current concerns surrounding data sovereignty relate to enforcing privacy regulations and preventing data stored in a foreign country from being subpoenaed by the host country’s government (Taiuru, 2017). Much of New Zealand’s data is stored overseas, in countries like Australia, America, India and Singapore, where it is much cheaper to store data. The less obvious issue people do not consider is where the data on their computers and social media is stored, who actually owns that data, and the fact that you have to pay an international company to store and access your own data.

Three primary pieces of United States legislation directly impact New Zealanders, and in particular Māori data sovereignty rights, for any data that is stored overseas or by a company owned by an American entity or individual:

• The Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data Act (CLOUD Act) (H.R. 4943), enacted on 23 March 2018. The CLOUD Act amends the Stored Communications Act of 1986 (SCA) to allow federal law enforcement to compel US-based technology companies, via warrant or subpoena, to provide requested data stored on servers, regardless of whether the data are stored in the US or in foreign jurisdictions.
• The USA PATRIOT Act (commonly known as the Patriot Act), an Act of the United States Congress that allows American law enforcement agencies a wide and varying scope of powers to seize, analyse and copy data in certain circumstances.
• The Stored Communications Act (SCA, codified at 18 U.S.C. Chapter 121, §§ 2701–2712), which permits the United States government to seize data held by any American company, whether the data is physically located in the US or stored in New Zealand.

It is essential that any Māori data is hosted locally in New Zealand by New Zealand-owned companies, to ensure Māori data sovereignty and Te Tiriti are recognised and respected.

Māori data sovereignty: some practicable steps

Māori data sovereignty consultation requires much more than consulting only the government Treaty partner, or talking to Māori in any one particular group. This section explains modern-day Māori society structure and hierarchy, all of whom are stakeholders in Māori data sovereignty.

While some Māori individuals and the New Zealand government have modelled Māori Data Sovereignty on Indigenous Data Sovereignty principles (which use tribal sovereign nations as the basis), as explained earlier, this is not an appropriate model for Māori.

As opposed to tribal sovereign nations, Māori society comprises complex social, professional, commercial and genealogical groups and sub-groups, many of which are traditional, while others have been formed and legislated to grow with modern-day society. Each of these also has its own consent processes, data and leadership that must be considered.

• Host onshore, to ensure the legislation of the land protects privacy.
• Make full disclosure of all facts and possible benefits and consequences. Often Māori and other Indigenous Peoples lack the technical skills to know the full consequences of what will happen to their data once it is digitised.

An example occurred in New Zealand some years ago involving a New Zealand university and a rural iwi with no Internet infrastructure who held a significant resource. The university wanted to digitise it and put it on the Internet. After the iwi expressed concerns about it being shared, the university told the iwi that it would only remain on the university’s server. As most of us will know, once something is on the Internet it can be copied and shared, and that is what happened.

As the digital ecosystem is new and does not directly reflect Indigenous world views, it is critical to understand both the technology and traditional knowledge. We are literally creating new Indigenous knowledge as new technologies are created and impact on our worlds.

Māori data governance

Māori Data Governance is the right of Māori, whānau, hapū, iwi and Māori organisations to autonomously decide what, how and why Māori data are collected, stored, accessed and used.

Appoint a Māori data governance board. When appointing the board, beyond having regard to a person’s knowledge of Māori cultural values, te ao Māori and mātauranga Māori, you should consider “whether the proposed member has the reputation amongst Māori in the community, in addition to skills, knowledge, or experience to participate effectively in the Board and contribute to achieving the purposes of the Board.”

This will remove the decades-long problem Māori have had in New Zealand with what we call the “Māori or brown tick-box exercise”, where any Māori person known to the organisation is likely to be seen as a cultural expert and asked to participate. Likewise, in recent years Māori academics have been placed in the same awkward position.

As practitioners, we know that in the western world data is anonymised. For non-Indigenous Peoples, this is where it stops, as there are no privacy concerns and no way to identify the data.

Māori data has a history, genealogical connections and a spiritual connection. Similar to Māori art and other traditional customs that appear to the unlearned as art or music, it is rich in data to a learned person.

It is also important that any data project or initiative is co-governed, co-designed, co-created and co-managed in partnership with Māori. In New Zealand, it is essential that any data project has a Te Tiriti/Treaty of Waitangi clause. As we have seen in New Zealand, the best of intentions with data-led projects can fail Māori and, in some instances, discriminate against Māori.

Māori data sovereignty datasets

Marae dataset

Increasingly the Crown is ignoring Māori data sovereignty partners, especially hapū and marae, by choosing to work only with iwi via the Iwi Leaders Forum under the auspices of the Mana Ōrite agreement. The Mana Ōrite agreement is a significant move forward in regard to Māori Data Sovereignty, but it does not consider the sovereignty given to hapū by Te Tiriti/The Treaty of Waitangi. There is more discussion in another post I wrote, Māori Data Sovereignty Consultation Obligations.

These lists were compiled as a resource tool to assist marae to gain sovereignty over their own data, as opposed to the ever-increasing iwi data sovereignty rights. The traditional marae list can be added to the iwi and hapū datasets.

Marae/Rūnanga Data Sovereignty refers to the inherent rights and interests of marae/rūnanga (individually or collectively) in relation to the creation, collection, access, analysis, interpretation, management, dissemination, re-use and control of data relating to a marae/rūnanga, as inherited by whakapapa with mana atua and mana tangata, and/or reflected in He Whakaputanga and/or Te Tiriti and the recognition of rights provided by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (Taiuru, 2020).

This section introduces three marae datasets:

• Traditional Marae Data Sovereignty Dataset, which may be cited as “Taiuru, Karaitiana. (2021). Traditional Marae Data Sovereignty Dataset”.
• Non-Traditional Marae Data Sovereignty Dataset, which may be cited as “Taiuru, Karaitiana. (2021). Non Traditional Marae Data Sovereignty Dataset”.
• Urban Marae Data Sovereignty Dataset, which may be cited as “Taiuru, Karaitiana. (2021). Urban Marae Data Sovereignty Dataset”.

Download the marae datasets

The datasets are available from https://github.com/ktaiuru.

Methodology

Three sources of truth were used to compile the Marae Data Sovereignty list.

Te Kāhui Māngai
The primary source of marae names was Te Kāhui Māngai, created by Te Puni Kōkiri. Te Kāhui Māngai is a large dataset of marae, iwi, hapū and other relevant information based on information recognised by the New Zealand Government, as opposed to traditional iwi, such as:

• Mandated Iwi Organisations and Recognised Iwi Organisations in the Māori Fisheries Act 2004;
• Mandated bodies recognised for Treaty of Waitangi settlement purposes, including Treaty negotiations and post-settlement governance entities;
• Iwi authorities and groups that represent hapū for the purposes of the Resource Management Act 1991;
• National and urban Māori organisations that have statutory associations with representative iwi organisations (“Other Organisations”); and
• Urban and institutional marae.

MāoriMaps.com
This website was used to identify, where possible, further names that are not present in Te Kāhui Māngai.

Iwi and hapū datasets

This section introduces a dataset of iwi, hapū and marae names that will form the basis of data sovereignty sets for database administrators, allowing hapū to regain sovereignty over their own data in this new society where data is the new currency. It recognises hapū and iwi rights and provides valuable information for navigating the whole Māori data sovereignty landscape.

This dataset is a work in progress that currently contains over 2,100 hapū names from 54 iwi.

Increasingly the New Zealand government/the Crown is ignoring Māori data sovereignty partners, especially hapū, by choosing to work only with iwi via the Iwi Leaders Forum under the auspices of the Mana Ōrite^[25] agreement. The Mana Ōrite agreement is a significant move forward in regard to Māori Data Sovereignty, but it does not consider the sovereignty given to hapū and other non-iwi groups by Te Tiriti/The Treaty of Waitangi.

This list was compiled as a resource tool to assist hapū to gain sovereignty over their own data, as opposed to the ever-increasing iwi data sovereignty rights recognised by the Crown. This list can be added to datasets as a subset of iwi names.

Download the hapū dataset

The dataset this section refers to is available on Dr Taiuru’s GitHub: https://github.com/ktaiuru.

Methodology

Five sources of truth were used to compile the Hapū Data Sovereignty list.

1. StatsNZ
The primary source of iwi names was the StatsNZ Census 2018 iwi names list. The StatsNZ primary numbering system has been duplicated for iwi, so that any cross-referencing to the StatsNZ list, and future updates that reflect StatsNZ changes, can occur seamlessly.

2. Waitangi Tribunal reports
Many iwi who have settled or are engaging in Treaty negotiations identify who they are by means of geographical, ancestral and hapū connections. Therefore, Waitangi Tribunal reports were used as a primary source of truth for hapū names.

3. Iwi websites
Where possible, hapū names were cross-referenced with authenticated iwi websites that use the moderated iwi.nz domain name, and with their publications. In several instances, such as Tūhoe, one source stated up to 65 hapū, but their own website and Tribunal reports showed fewer.

4. Te Kāhui Māngai
Te Kāhui Māngai, created by Te Puni Kōkiri, is a large dataset of marae, iwi, hapū and other relevant information based on information recognised by the New Zealand Government, as opposed to traditional iwi, such as:

• Mandated Iwi Organisations and Recognised Iwi Organisations in the Māori Fisheries Act 2004;
• Mandated bodies recognised for Treaty of Waitangi settlement purposes, including Treaty negotiations and post-settlement governance entities;
• Iwi authorities and groups that represent hapū for the purposes of the Resource Management Act 1991;
• National and urban Māori organisations that have statutory associations with representative iwi organisations (“Other Organisations”); and
• Urban and institutional marae.

The issue with relying only on such lists is that traditional iwi and hapū structures become ignored and are not consulted, in favour of those iwi and hapū that choose to adapt their traditional, long-established kinship groups into western structures. The biggest risk with this can be seen in America, with federally recognised tribes versus tribes that are not recognised by the government. More than 200 tribes do not have federal recognition, affecting tens of thousands of tribal members in America alone. The US government officially recognises 574 tribes. Unrecognised tribes received no financial assistance, or even COVID-19 assistance, while recognised tribes did.

Hence Te Kāhui Māngai was used as a secondary source, and for new mandated iwi information.

5. Iwi and hapū names list from the National Library
The National Library has its own iwi and hapū names list. The National Library states that the list is “… derived from the waka, iwi, and hapū names which had been used to describe collections in the Alexander Turnbull Library, and has been reviewed by Te Taura Whiri, the Māori Language Commission. The names listed are not a dictionary, and shouldn’t be seen as authoritative beyond their use in libraries and archives”.

This resource was important as it contains lists of hapū that are or were recognised by whānau, hapū and iwi at some point.

MāoriMaps.com
This website was used to identify, where possible, whether a name was an iwi or hapū, and its geographic location.

Notes

• Iwi names are listed by geographic region, based on StatsNZ data.
• Hapū are listed alphabetically.
• Te Arawa has been added as a traditional iwi, whereas the Census list has divided Te Arawa by hapū and called them iwi and iwi authorities.
• 2018 Census list of iwi that are not in this list:
  • • Ngā Pōtiki ā Tamapahore Trust is a leading tribal organisation that serves the people of Ngā Pōtiki.
    • Ngāti Rongomai is recognised in Te Arawa as a Te Arawa iwi, according to Te Puni Kōkiri.
    • Te Hika o Pāpāuma is a marae that is now a registered iwi authority, according to Te Puni Kōkiri.
    • Ngāti Kearoa / Ngāti Tuarā are listed as both an iwi and a hapū, according to Te Puni Kōkiri.
    • Rereahu was removed from the list as it is Trust Maraeroa A & B (Land Block): all individuals who descend from the owners of the Maraeroa A and B Blocks, identified by the Native Land Court in 1886 and 1891. The descendants are of Ngāti Rereahu, Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Kārewa, Ngāti Matakore, Ngāti Tūwharetoa and other neighbouring iwi.
    • Ngāti Rākaipaaka: see Kahungunu.
    • Te Paatu is a hapū of Ngāti Kahu.
    • Uenuku (Ruapehu, Waimarino) is a hapū of Te Āti Haunui-a-Pāpārangi.
    • Te Kawerau a Maki are the tangata whenua (people of the land) of Waitakere City, who hold customary authority or mana whenua within the city. Te Kawerau a Maki descend from the earliest inhabitants of the area. However, the Kawerau a Maki people have been a distinct tribal entity since the early 1600s, when their ancestor Maki and his people conquered and settled the district.
    • Ngāti Whātua o Kaipara is the name that was agreed upon by the majority of hapū and whānau of the five marae of south Kaipara (Reweti, Haranui, Kākānui, Araparera and Puatahi) during the claim and settlement process. This is the primary area of interest that Ngā Maunga Whakahii o Kaipara works within. The term Ngāti Whātua o Kaipara is not traditional and was adopted during the claim period to avoid confusion between Ngāti Whātua in Ōrākei, Ngāti Whātua from Te Uri o Hau and Ngāti Whātua in south Kaipara. Within the context of the Claims Settlement Act 2013, Ngāti Whātua o Kaipara means not only Ngāti Whātua but also Ngāti Whātua Tūturu, Te Tao Ū, Ngāti Rango (sometimes referred to as Ngāti Rongo), Ngāti Hine and Te Uri o Hau, who exercised customary rights predominantly within the Ngāti Whātua o Kaipara area of interest. https://www.kaiparamoana.com/our-rohe
    • Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki (Ngāi Tai) are the original inhabitants and iwi of Tāmaki Makaurau. The iwi is based in Maraetai, Te Waitematā and Tīkapa Moana, and exercises mana whenua and mana moana interests across Auckland and the Hauraki Gulf. Their main marae is Umupuia at Maraetai, with various marae connections across Mātaitai, Whataapaka and beyond. The iwi has whakapapa and other relationships with iwi in the Tāmaki Makaurau and Hauraki regions. https://www.ngaitaitamaki.iwi.nz/#OurStory
    • Ngāti Tumutumu is a Māori iwi of New Zealand, named after the eponymous ancestor Te Ruinga, son of Tumutumu. They live at Te Aroha in the Hauraki District.
  • Ngāti Tara Tokanui signifies the compact formed through the intermarriage between Te Awapu of Ngāti Tara and Te Rae of Ngāti Hako. The iwi Ngāti Tara also whakapapa to Marama (Ngamarama) through, firstly, her marriage to Hoturoa and, secondly, through Tarawa of Ngāti Hako and Ngamarama. https://ngatitaratokanui.maori.nz/
• Ngāi Tahu have the 18 Papatipu Rūnanga at the start of the list, followed by an optional historical list of Ngāi Tahu hapū that are no longer formally recognised.

Kaitiakitanga Māori data sovereignty licences

Background

Māori data sovereignty rights are affected by licences and legal agreements to use software and services, which often allow the provider to claim full intellectual property rights and to copy and distribute your information. Such licences are usually associated with social media service providers.

Māori data sovereignty must, in addition to the physical location of Māori data, include the software, hardware and service licences, and the country where the company and its parent company are located. Proprietary licences, and licences that prevent or limit any access to the source code, Māori data or by-products of Māori data, or that take any intellectual property rights to Māori data or by-products of Māori data, are a direct breach of Māori data sovereignty principles.

The use of proprietary licences with Māori data could be considered the same as the confiscation of natural resources and land during colonisation. The natural environment and lands were protected by Māori, who had an intimate knowledge of each aspect of the environment and who needed it to survive and to tell their own stories of histories, whakapapa, lore and much more. Colonisation then forced Māori to pay for the right to access and protect their own resources, through confiscations, purchases, sales, transfers, rates and legislation that removed many of the original rights and limited the ways knowledge could be kept and used.

The use of social licences for Māori data is often promoted within the New Zealand government exclusively for iwi data. The fundamental flaw with a social licence for Māori data is that the rights of Māori Peoples, hapū, whānau, iwi and Māori organisations are not recognised in Māori data sovereignty. A social licence has the potential to protect Māori data, but it would require significant engagement with the relevant Māori societal groups.

Other potential licences are Creative Commons licences, which more closely align with Māori cultural practices around knowledge, including but not limited to whakapapa, koha, hau, tapu and noa. Consideration and collaboration could also be given to the living Kaitiakitanga Licence by Te Hiku Media^[i].

There is currently no single solution to recognise Māori data sovereignty and the protection of Māori genetic material. This creates the dire need for a Māori data sovereignty licence that recognises to the full extent the rights and obligations of Māori Peoples, whānau, hapū, iwi and Māori organisations in relation to their data.

Māori data that, after consultation with Māori, whānau, hapū and iwi, has been digitised must be stored in New Zealand using appropriate software and services that recognise and respect the data as a taonga.

Introduction

This section introduces six new licences to protect Māori data and recognise Māori data sovereignty rights today and for the next 1000 years. Māori data sovereignty principles are also updated to reflect Māori society, and the social licence is reviewed as not appropriate for Māori and Indigenous data.

Any discussion and consideration of Māori data sovereignty must include He Whakaputanga, Te Tiriti and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples principles and the rights guaranteed to Māori Peoples, in addition to Māori societal hierarchy.

In traditional Māori society, there is no notion of the western concept of ‘ownership’. Māori view themselves as the collective interim guardians of the physical and spiritual environment. In this digital society, that now includes data.

Every individual Māori person is a descendant of an ancestor who is Māori. Through that ancestor, each individual Māori person has a genealogical connection to at least one hapū (clan), iwi (tribe), whānau (family group), waka (ocean voyaging vessel), marae (ancestral meeting house) and land.

Most Māori have multiple genealogical connections to multiple ancestors, hapū, iwi, marae and land. Each individual, whānau, hapū and iwi make up the myriad of Māori organisations and groups.

Māori today identify with land, whānau, iwi, hapū, waka, marae and ancestors in their pepeha. Future generations of Māori will include their relationships to data, and likely AI systems and algorithms, as they increasingly use and rely on Māori data.

There is an urgent need for government to consult with wider Māori communities regarding Māori constitutional Te Tiriti rights, and to consider how to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples^[26] to manage and work in partnership with Māori communities for the sovereignty of their own taonga (data).

Failure to do so may end with repatriation claims and new claims to the Waitangi Tribunal^[27], in a similar manner to how Māori now take disputes over land to be rectified and compensated for breaches of Te Tiriti.

All aspects of Māori society must acknowledge that data is a taonga, and that DNA is also data.

Social licences are incompatible with te ao Māori

Some government agencies incorrectly use a ‘social licence’ for Māori data and their commitment to Māori data sovereignty.

A social licence is a direct contradiction of the Māori data sovereignty principles, including of tikanga, kawa and mātauranga Māori and the obligations of generations to act as kaitiaki, as opposed to western ownership models.

“The Social License has been defined as existing when a project has the ongoing approval within the local community and other stakeholders, ongoing approval or broad social acceptance and, most frequently, as ongoing acceptance” (Social Licence, 2020).

In the MPI Primary Growth Partnership newsletter, Jamieson (2015, p. 1) noted that: “In a nutshell, if a company or organization has social licence to operate it means they have the support and trust of their customers and the public. It’s about gaining community and public acceptance for the work that you do”.

The key issue is that no Crown agency or department can claim to have the support and trust of iwi, hapū, whānau, marae and Māori individuals or groups. If they did, there would be no such thing as the Waitangi Tribunal^[28], reforms of government agencies, or accusations of discrimination by Crown organisations, and Te Tiriti would be so firmly established in New Zealand society that we would all be comfortable in a bicultural, bilingual society with a mixture of Māori and western values. We are not, and we are generations away from that stage.

Using a social licence with Māori data also implies that there has been significant consultation with iwi, hapū, whānau, marae and Māori organisations and individuals, highlighting the misunderstandings about modern-day Māori societal structure^[29].

There is no one representative group to represent Māori, hapū, iwi, whānau, marae and rōpū Māori. Each iwi is autonomous from the others, as are their marae and hapū, and most iwi do not hold elections to elect representatives.

A social licence also ignores the independent sovereign nation status that the Crown guaranteed to the rangatira and hapū who signed the Declaration of Independence^[30].

Modern-day Māori society

Building on top of the traditional Māori society platform is a range of new Māori groups and collectives whose data must be considered in addition to the traditional Māori society platform.

All of these groups have their own internal leadership structures and comprise Māori individuals, groups, whānau, hapū, iwi, marae and kaumātua:

• Pan-iwi/Māori representative bodies such as the National Urban Māori Authority, Federation of Māori Authorities and Māori Women’s Welfare League
• Rūnanga
• Māori Council
• Religious groups such as Rātana, Hauhau and Ringatū
• Iwi-based organisations that are not recognised as iwi, such as Wakatū Incorporation and Wellington Tenths Trust
• Post-settlement iwi corporations such as Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu, Waikato and Te Ohu Kaimoana
• Non-traditional iwi groups for those who do not know their iwi or who live away from their iwi, such as Ngā Maatawaka ki Ōtautahi and Te Whānau o Waipareira Trust
• Legislative Māori bodies such as the Māori Council and Māori Wardens
• Kīngitanga Movement
• Māori organisations such as sports clubs, not-for-profits and charitable trusts
• Education groups: Kōhanga Reo, Kura Kaupapa Māori, Māori-medium schools, Wānanga, Māori student associations
• Māori land groups: Ahu Whenua Trust, Kaitiaki Trust, Māori Incorporation, Māori Reservation, Pūtea Trust, Whānau Trust, Whenua Tōpū Trust
• Political groups such as the Māori Party
• Treaty of Waitangi claimants
• Māori social and health providers and community groups
• Fraternities and social groups, including gangs
• Advisory groups, including Māori experts and kaumātua
• Māori professional and interest groups
• Māori-owned companies
• Iwi Leaders Forum
• Iwi-based kaumātua councils, such as Tūhoe’s

Traditional Māori society (physical)

Traditional Māori society is the foundation for today’s modern Māori society. Every individual person’s data has a whakapapa connection that is multi-directional, from the tīpuna to the whānau, hapū, iwi and the individual.

Traditional knowledge states that Māori left Polynesia in multiple voyages in multiple waka to settle their new homes in New Zealand. Hence, on each waka were a number of family members. On arriving in New Zealand, those family members explored the land and settled in their clans under the mantle of their primary tribe. Each clan explored and named the landscapes and environment in their geographic locations. There were significant intermarriages, land wars and mergers of clans and tribes for survival.

The physical genealogy of every Māori person includes at least the following relationships, as does their data:

• Tīpuna
• Waka
• Iwi
• Rangatira (multiple classes: chiefs)
• Tohunga (spiritual experts)
• Kaumātua (learned elders)
• Upoko (head of a whānau, hapū or iwi)
• Marae
• Village
• Hapū
• Whānau (family: tuakana/teina)
• Individual person

Kaitiakitanga: Māori Data Sovereignty Licence 1.1

Preamble

Māori Data Sovereignty refers to the inherent rights and interests Māori, whānau, hapū, marae, iwi and Māori organisations have in relation to the creation, collection, access, analysis, interpretation, management, dissemination, re-use and control of data relating to Māori, whānau, hapū, marae, iwi and Māori organisations, as guaranteed in He Whakaputanga and/or Te Tiriti and the recognition of rights provided by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (Taiuru, 2020).

Whakapapa

The following licence was originally written by Te Hiku Media and modified slightly to allow for and recognise Māori data sovereignty rights using traditional Māori law in respect of Māori data.

The intention is that this can be modified or applied directly to any whānau, hapū, marae, iwi, Māori organisation or group data.

Explanation

Kaitiaki is a Māori word without a specific English translation, but its meanings are similar to the words guardian, protector and custodian. In this context we protect the Māori data in this repository and will provide access to the data as we (Māori) deem fit through our own tikanga and kawa (customs and protocols).

While we recognise the importance of open-source technologies, Creative Commons and Open Data, we’re mindful that the majority of tangata whenua and other Indigenous Peoples may not have access to the resources that enable them to benefit from open-source technologies, Creative Commons and Open Data.

As tangata whenua, our ability to grow, develop and innovate has been stymied through colonisation. We must protect our ability to grow as tangata whenua. By simply open-sourcing, opening data or applying Creative Commons to our data and knowledge, we further allow ourselves to be colonised digitally in the modern world.

The Kaitiakitanga Licence is a work in progress. It’s a living licence. It will evolve as we see fit. This licence is an international example of Indigenous Peoples’ retention of mana over data and their other intellectual property rights in a western construct.

Kaitiakitanga of content

The kaitiakitanga of all data remains with the respective whānau, hapū, marae, iwi, Māori organisation or group. Data may be freely used and distributed with the licence attached, but may not be sold or used for commercial purposes.

Kaitiakitanga: Iwi Data Sovereignty Licence 1.1

Preamble

Iwi Data Sovereignty refers to the inherent rights and interests Māori, whānau, hapū, iwi, marae and Māori organisations have in relation to the creation, collection, access, analysis, interpretation, management, dissemination, re-use and control of data relating to Māori, whānau, hapū, iwi and Māori organisations, as guaranteed in He Whakaputanga and/or Te Tiriti and the recognition of rights provided by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (Taiuru, 2020).

Whakapapa

The following licence was originally written by Te Hiku Media and modified slightly to allow for and recognise iwi data sovereignty rights using traditional Māori law in respect of iwi data.

The intention is that this can be modified or applied directly to any whānau, hapū, marae, iwi, Māori organisation or group data.

Explanation

Kaitiaki is a Māori word without a specific English translation, but its meanings are similar to the words guardian, protector and custodian. In this context we protect the iwi data in this repository and will provide access to the data as we (iwi) deem fit through our own tikanga and kawa (customs and protocols).

While we recognise the importance of open-source technologies, Creative Commons and Open Data, we’re mindful that the majority of tangata whenua and other Indigenous Peoples may not have access to the resources that enable them to benefit from open-source technologies, Creative Commons and Open Data.

As an iwi, our ability to grow, develop and innovate has been stymied through colonisation. We must protect our ability to grow as an iwi. By simply open-sourcing, opening data or applying Creative Commons to our data and knowledge, we further allow ourselves to be colonised digitally in the modern world.

The Kaitiakitanga Licence is a work in progress. It’s a living licence. It will evolve as we see fit. This licence is an international example of Indigenous Peoples’ retention of mana over data and their other intellectual property rights in a western construct.

Kaitiakitanga of content

The kaitiakitanga of all data remains with the respective iwi. Data may be freely used and distributed with the licence attached, but may not be sold or used for commercial purposes.

Kaitiakitanga: Hapū Data Sovereignty Licence 1.1

Preamble

Hapū Data Sovereignty refers to the inherent rights and interests Māori, whānau, hapū, iwi, marae and Māori organisations have in relation to the creation, collection, access, analysis, interpretation, management, dissemination, re-use and control of data relating to Māori, whānau, hapū, iwi and Māori organisations, as guaranteed in He Whakaputanga and/or Te Tiriti and the recognition of rights provided by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (Taiuru, 2020).

Whakapapa

The following licence was originally written by Te Hiku Media and modified slightly to allow for and recognise hapū data sovereignty rights using traditional Māori law in respect of hapū data.

The intention is that this can be modified or applied directly to any whānau, hapū, marae, iwi, Māori organisation or group data.

Explanation

Kaitiaki is a Māori word without a specific English translation, but its meanings are similar to the words guardian, protector and custodian. In this context we protect the hapū data in this repository and will provide access to the data as we (hapū) deem fit through our own tikanga and kawa (customs and protocols).

While we recognise the importance of open-source technologies, Creative Commons and Open Data, we’re mindful that the majority of tangata whenua and other Indigenous Peoples may not have access to the resources that enable them to benefit from open-source technologies, Creative Commons and Open Data.

As a hapū, our ability to grow, develop and innovate has been stymied through colonisation. We must protect our ability to grow as a hapū. By simply open-sourcing, opening data or applying Creative Commons to our data and knowledge, we further allow ourselves to be colonised digitally in the modern world.

The Kaitiakitanga Licence is a work in progress. It’s a living licence. It will evolve as we see fit. This licence is an international example of Indigenous Peoples’ retention of mana over data and their other intellectual property rights in a western construct.

Kaitiakitanga of content

The kaitiakitanga of all data remains with the respective hapū. Data may be freely used and distributed with the licence attached, but may not be sold or used for commercial purposes.

Kaitiakitanga: Marae/Rūnanga Data Sovereignty Licence 1.1

Preamble

Marae/Rūnanga Data Sovereignty refers to the inherent rights and interests Māori, whānau, hapū, iwi, marae and Māori organisations have in relation to the creation, collection, access, analysis, interpretation, management, dissemination, re-use and control of data relating to Māori, whānau, hapū, iwi and Māori organisations, as guaranteed in He Whakaputanga and/or Te Tiriti and the recognition of rights provided by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (Taiuru, 2020).

Whakapapa

The following licence was originally written by Te Hiku Media and modified slightly to allow for and recognise marae data sovereignty rights using traditional Māori law in respect of marae data.

The intention is that this can be modified or applied directly to any whānau, hapū, marae, iwi, Māori organisation or group data.

Explanation

Kaitiaki is a Māori word without a specific English translation, but its meanings are similar to the words guardian, protector and custodian. In this context we protect the marae data in this repository and will provide access to the data as we (the marae) deem fit through our own tikanga and kawa (customs and protocols).

While we recognise the importance of open-source technologies, Creative Commons and Open Data, we’re mindful that the majority of tangata whenua and other Indigenous Peoples may not have access to the resources that enable them to benefit from open-source technologies, Creative Commons and Open Data.

As a marae, our ability to grow, develop and innovate has been stymied through colonisation. We must protect our ability to grow as a marae. By simply open-sourcing, opening data or applying Creative Commons to our data and knowledge, we further allow ourselves to be colonised digitally in the modern world.

The Kaitiakitanga Licence is a work in progress. It’s a living licence. It will evolve as we see fit. This licence is an international example of Indigenous Peoples’ retention of mana over data and their other intellectual property rights in a western construct.

Kaitiakitanga of content

The kaitiakitanga of all data remains with the respective marae. Data may be freely used and distributed with the licence attached, but may not be sold or used for commercial purposes.

Kaitiakitanga: Rōpū Māori Data Sovereignty Licence 1.1

Preamble

Rōpū Māori Data Sovereignty refers to the inherent rights and interests Māori organisations (commercial, not-for-profit, collectives, representatives, consortiums) have in relation to the creation, collection, access, analysis, interpretation, management, dissemination, re-use and control of data relating to Māori organisations and Māori Peoples, as inherited by whakapapa with mana atua and mana tangata, and/or guaranteed to Māori Peoples in He Whakaputanga, Te Tiriti and the recognition of rights provided by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Whakapapa

The following licence was originally written by Te Hiku Media and modified slightly to allow for and recognise rōpū Māori data sovereignty rights using traditional Māori law in respect of rōpū Māori data.

The intention is that this can be modified or applied directly to any whānau, hapū, marae, iwi, Māori organisation or group data.

Explanation

Kaitiaki is a Māori word without a specific English translation, but its meanings are similar to the words guardian, protector and custodian. In this context we protect the rōpū Māori data in this repository and will provide access to the data as we (the rōpū Māori) deem fit through our own tikanga and kawa (customs and protocols).

While we recognise the importance of open-source technologies, Creative Commons and Open Data, we’re mindful that the majority of tangata whenua and other Indigenous Peoples may not have access to the resources that enable them to benefit from open-source technologies, Creative Commons and Open Data.

As a rōpū Māori, our ability to grow, develop and innovate has been stymied through colonisation. We must protect our ability to grow as a rōpū Māori. By simply open-sourcing, opening data or applying Creative Commons to our data and knowledge, we further allow ourselves to be colonised digitally in the modern world.

The Kaitiakitanga Licence is a work in progress. It’s a living licence. It will evolve as we see fit. This licence is an international example of Indigenous Peoples’ retention of mana over data and their other intellectual property rights in a western construct.

Kaitiakitanga of content

The kaitiakitanga of all data remains with the respective rōpū Māori. Data may be freely used and distributed with the licence attached, but may not be sold or used for commercial purposes.

Kaitiakitanga: Whānau Māori Data Sovereignty Licence 1.1

Preamble

Whānau Māori Data Sovereignty refers to the inherent rights and interests whānau Māori have in relation to the creation, collection, access, analysis, interpretation, management, dissemination, re-use and control of data relating to whānau Māori, as inherited by whakapapa with mana atua and mana tangata, and as guaranteed in He Whakaputanga and/or Te Tiriti and the recognition of rights provided by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Whakapapa

The following licence was originally written by Te Hiku Media and modified slightly to allow for and recognise whānau Māori data sovereignty rights using traditional Māori law in respect of whānau Māori data.

The intention is that this can be modified or applied directly to any whānau, hapū, marae, iwi, Māori organisation or group data.

Explanation

Kaitiaki is a Māori word without a specific English translation, but its meanings are similar to the words guardian, protector and custodian. In this context we protect the whānau Māori data in this repository and will provide access to the data as we (the whānau Māori) deem fit through our own tikanga and kawa (customs and protocols).

While we recognise the importance of open-source technologies, Creative Commons and Open Data, we’re mindful that the majority of tangata whenua and other Indigenous Peoples may not have access to the resources that enable them to benefit from open-source technologies, Creative Commons and Open Data.

As whānau Māori, our ability to grow, develop and innovate has been stymied through colonisation. We must protect our ability to grow as whānau Māori. By simply open-sourcing, opening data or applying Creative Commons to our data and knowledge, we further allow ourselves to be colonised digitally in the modern world.

The Kaitiakitanga Licence is a work in progress. It’s a living licence. It will evolve as we see fit. This licence is an international example of Indigenous Peoples’ retention of mana over data and their other intellectual property rights in a western construct.

Kaitiakitanga of content

The kaitiakitanga of all data remains with the respective whānau Māori. Data may be freely used and distributed with the licence attached, but may not be sold or used for commercial purposes.

Glossary

Hapū

Before colonisation, and still in many areas of New Zealand, a hapū was (and is) a significant political unit consisting of a number of whānau, existing as independent communities spread over a wide area and interspersed with groups from other iwi.

Iwi

A collective of a number of whānau and hapū that trace their ancestry to a common ancestor. An iwi usually comprises two or more hapū, although a number of smaller iwi have marae but no hapū.

Electoral Iwi Organisation and Other Māori Organisation

For the purposes of sections 111A to 111F of the Electoral Act 1993, iwi organisation and other Māori organisation means any organisation listed in the Schedule.

Institutional marae

These marae are specifically associated with a local school, polytechnic, university, church, branch of the armed forces, social service provider or other institution.

Iwi Authority/Other Iwi Authority

The term “iwi authority” is defined in the RMA only for the purposes of that Act. An iwi authority is not, therefore, necessarily the same thing as other representative iwi organisations recognised by the Crown. Consequently, entry as an “Other Iwi Authority” does not in itself imply formal Crown recognition of that group as an iwi, nor formal Crown recognition of that “iwi authority” to act on behalf of that group.

Iwi Aquaculture Organisation (IAO)

Under the Māori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement Act 2004, an iwi aquaculture organisation is also a mandated iwi organisation under the Māori Fisheries Act 2004, authorised to act on behalf of its iwi in relation to aquaculture claims and aquaculture settlement assets.

Iwi authority

For Resource Management Act consultation, the authority which represents an iwi for the purposes of the Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA) and which is recognised by that iwi as having authority to do so. Note that the term “iwi authority” is defined in the RMA only for the purposes of that Act. This does not in itself imply formal Crown recognition of that group as an iwi, nor formal recognition by the Crown of that “iwi authority” to act on behalf of that iwi.

Mana whenua

A hapū, marae or iwi who have authority via genealogy and history in a geographic area.

Mandated iwi organisation in the Māori Fisheries Act (MIO)

When a recognised iwi organisation has met the governance criteria set out in the Māori Fisheries Act 2004, it is entitled to receive fisheries assets as the mandated iwi organisation for that iwi. There can be only one mandated iwi organisation per iwi.

Marae

A traditional meeting place for whānau, hapū and iwi members, usually characterised by a named wharenui (meeting house) and named wharekai (dining house). Some marae are more commonly known by the name of their wharenui, which is usually named after a tupuna (ancestor).

Non-tribal marae (urban and institutional)

These marae are not based on whakapapa. Urban marae are typically pan-tribal and serve the wider community. Institutional marae are specifically associated with a local school, polytechnic, university, church, branch of the armed forces, social service provider or other institution.

Post-Treaty settlement governance entity

The representative organisation established after a Treaty settlement with the Crown, with the purpose of representing the iwi members and managing any assets resulting from the settlement.

Recognised iwi in the Māori Fisheries Act

The Māori Fisheries Act 2004 identified a finite list of iwi for the purposes of allocating fisheries assets; the list is comprehensive and means that all Māori can affiliate by whakapapa to at least one iwi.

Representative Māori Organisation in the Māori Fisheries Act 2004

Under section 29 of the Māori Fisheries Act 2004, a Representative Māori Organisation is entitled to participate in the procedures to appoint or remove a member or alternate member of Te Kawai Taumata, as provided for in Schedule 8, and to appoint a member of any committee of representatives established under section 116.

Recognised iwi organisation in the Māori Fisheries Act (RIO)

An organisation recognised by Te Ohu Kai Moana Trustee Limited under section 27 of the Māori Fisheries Act 2004 as representing a particular iwi, but not to receive fisheries assets. Each iwi can have only one recognised iwi organisation; see Schedule 4 of the Act for the full list.

Representative organisation

The organisation which holds a mandate to represent specific kinship groups (hapū and iwi).

Taurahere

A group of iwi members living in a city where they are not mana whenua.

Tribal marae

These marae are linked to iwi, hapū and whānau through whakapapa. The website www.maorimaps.com can be used to find information on associated hapū and iwi marae.

Urban marae

Non-traditional marae, not specifically associated with any particular hapū, although the mana whenua of the hapū or iwi at the marae site is often acknowledged. They often serve as meeting places for the wider community and may also be called community, Ngā Hau e Whā, Ngā Mātā Waka or pan-tribal marae.

Whānau

For the purposes of this document, the term “whānau” is translated as “family”. Whānau is based on a Māori and tribal world view with a common ancestor and/or atua.

Notes

1. 1. [2] https://www.temanararaunga.maori.nz/
   2. [3] https://stats.govt.nz/about-us/what-we-do/mana-orite-relationship-agreement/
   3. [4] https://www.stats.govt.nz/assets/Uploads/2013-Census-iwi-individual-profiles/95-iwi-profiles-Ngai-Tahu-Kai-Tahu.pdf
   4. [5] https://ir.canterbury.ac.nz/handle/10092/11385
   5. [6] https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1998/0097/latest/DLM429090.html
   6. [7] https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/ldr/441324/tuhoe-protest-against-their-own
   7. [8]
   8. [9]
   9. [10] http://www.ngaitahu.iwi.nz
   10. [11] https://waikatotainui.com/
   11. [12] https://iwichairs.maori.nz/
   12. [13] https://www.kahungunu.iwi.nz/
   13. [14] https://www.ngatirarua.iwi.nz/
   14. [15] https://waikatotainui.com/
   15. [16] http://www.ngaitahu.iwi.nz
   16. [17] https://data-activism.net/2019/10/bigdatasur-some-thoughts-on-decolonizing-data/
   17. [18] Other major sources are the Constitution Act 1986, the prerogative powers of the Sovereign, the State Sector Act 1988, the Electoral Act 1993, the Senior Courts Act 2016, the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 and other relevant New Zealand statutes, relevant English and United Kingdom statutes, relevant decisions of the courts and the conventions of the constitution.
   18. [19] Waitangi Tribunal. (2019). Hauora: Report on Stage One of the Health Services and Outcomes Kaupapa Inquiry. Wellington: Waitangi Tribunal, pp. 163–164.

1. 1. [20] https://www.taiuru.maori.nz/nz-algorithm-charter-further-risks-maori/
   2. [21]

1. [22] https://ngaitahu.maori.nz/hapu/
2. [23]
3. [24]
4. [25] https://www.stats.govt.nz/assets/Uploads/mana-orite-relationship-agreement-with-cover-note-12-february-2021.pdf
5. [26] https://www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/declaration-on-the-rights-of-indigenous-peoples.html
6. [27] https://waitangitribunal.govt.nz/
7. [28] https://waitangitribunal.govt.nz/
8. [29] https://www.taiuru.co.nz/maori-data-sovereignty-consultation-issues/
9. [30] https://nzhistory.govt.nz/culture/declaration-of-independence-taming-the-frontier

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