Te Kete o Karaitiana Taiuru (Blog)

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner’s 2026 survey on privacy concerns and the use of personal information tells a story that New Zealand policymakers, technologists, and public institutions would do well to read carefully.

More than half of all New Zealanders, 52 percent say they are concerned about their individual privacy. Among Māori, that figure rises to 57 percent.

What Māori Are Most Worried About
Across the eleven specific privacy issues tested in 2026, Māori track close to the national picture on most, but diverge sharply in two areas: facial recognition technology and the aggregation of government data.

The three concerns that top the national list also lead for Māori. Children’s privacy and social media use (72 percent), government and business use of AI to make decisions about individuals (66 percent), and management of personal data by social media companies (62 percent) all register very high concern among Māori, though fractionally lower than the general population on the latter two.

Where Māori pull decisively ahead is on surveillance technologies. Fifty-eight percent of Māori are concerned about biases in facial recognition technology, compared to 53 percent overall.

Concern about law enforcement using facial recognition in public spaces sits at 56 percent among Māori, against 45 percent nationally an eleven-percentage-point gap that is among the largest in the entire dataset. Use of facial recognition in retail environments draws 55 percent concern from Māori, against 47 percent overall. And 56 percent of Māori are concerned about different government organisations combining their personal data to build a unified profile of each individual, against 53 percent for the full sample.

These map onto a documented history of surveillance, data misuse, and the institutional aggregation of information about Māori communities, a history that shapes how the present is reasonably perceived.

Wanting Control, Feeling Fatigue
Eighty-five percent of Māori want more control and choice over how their personal information is collected and used, compared to 82 percent overall. Seventy-three percent describe protecting their personal information as a major concern in their life, against 66 percent of the general population.

The Māori figure on personal information as a major life concern has remained consistently above the national average across multiple survey years.

Yet alongside this heightened concern runs a parallel theme: fatigue. Fifty-one percent of Māori agree that none of their personal information is really private anymore, equivalent to the general population figure of 51 percent. The same proportion says it is too much effort to protect the privacy of their data, compared to 49 percent nationally. And 46 percent of Māori say they feel in control of their data privacy, identical to the general population.

The convergence between Māori and non-Māori on fatigue measures, while Māori remain well above average on concern, points to a troubling dynamic: a community that recognises the risks, wants redress, but finds itself running short of practical agency to act. That is not a personal failing. It is a structural condition that privacy governance must address.

Trust
Only 21 percent of Māori have very high or high trust in government agencies to handle their personal information responsibly. The general population figure is 31 percent. That ten-percentage-point gap between Māori and the institutions most directly responsible for the data that governs their lives is the starkest result in the survey, and of surprise.

For context: NZ based businesses attract high or very high trust from 30 percent of Māori, community organisations from 25 percent, and overseas based businesses from 17 percent. Māori are more likely to trust an overseas corporation with their personal data than they are to trust a New Zealand government agency. The general population figure for overseas businesses is 11 percent, meaning Māori are more trusting of foreign commercial entities than the national average, while being less trusting of domestic government. The inversion is striking, and it speaks to something deeper than privacy preferences.

Confidence in the Law
Confidence that New Zealand’s legal framework adequately protects privacy is low across the board. Nationally, only 18 percent are extremely or very confident. Among Māori, that figure is slightly higher at 21 percent, but the tail of the distribution is more pronounced. Seventeen percent of Māori have no confidence whatsoever in the law’s protections, against 13 percent of the general population. One in six Māori adults surveyed does not believe the law protects them at all.

Rights, Reform, and the Privacy Act
Despite the trust deficit with government, Māori broadly support stronger privacy protections and expanded powers for the Privacy Commissioner. Seventy-three percent support large fines for serious privacy breaches, 70 percent support audit powers for the Commissioner, and 67 percent support small infringement notices. These figures have eased slightly from 2025 but remain solid.

Awareness that the Privacy Act gives New Zealanders the right to access personal information held about them has grown among Māori to 56 percent, up five percentage points from 2025, and now matching the general population. That is meaningful progress.
On additional rights under the Privacy Act, Māori support is genuine but slightly below the general population across all four measures tested. The right to request erasure of personal information receives the strongest Māori backing at 80 percent, against 86 percent nationally. The right to be told in advance when AI will be used to make decisions about an individual, a question of direct relevance to health, welfare, and justice settings attracts 81 percent support among Māori.

On children’s privacy, Māori support for law change is unequivocal: 88 percent are in favour, identical to the general population, and 59 percent of Māori strongly agree, a higher rate of strong agreement than any other group.

Conclusion

Read together, the 2026 survey presents a coherent picture of a community that is wide awake to digital risk, whose concerns are concentrated most sharply in the areas most likely to cause disproportionate harm: AI decision making, facial recognition, and government data aggregation and whose trust in the institutions charged with protecting them is substantially lower than the national average.

That combination of elevated awareness and diminished institutional trust is not a paradox. It is a logical response to a specific historical and contemporary relationship between Māori communities and government data systems, one that has not always worked in their interests.
Any credible approach to Māori data sovereignty must begin there: not by asking why Māori are concerned, but by taking seriously the reasonableness of that concern, and by building institutions and frameworks capable of earning back what has been lost.

 

Raw Data from the Report on Specific Privacy Issues

Across the eleven specific issues tested, Māori track close to the general population on most concerns, with notable divergences around facial recognition and government data:

Māori express significantly higher concern than the general population on:

• Use of facial recognition in retail stores (55% Māori vs 47% All)
• Use of facial recognition by law enforcement in public spaces (56% Māori vs 45% All)
• Biases of facial recognition technology (58% Māori vs 53% All)
• Different government organisations combining personal information to create a single view of a person (56% Māori vs 53% All)

 

On AI decision making, children’s privacy, and social media, Māori results are close to the national figures (72%, 66%, and 62% respectively, compared to 71%, 67%, and 65% overall).

 

Control Over Personal Information

85% of Māori want more control and choice over the collection and use of their personal information, compared to 82% overall.

73% of Māori agree that protecting personal information is a major concern in their life, compared to 66% overall a gap that has been consistent across survey years.

On privacy fatigue, Māori are similar to the general population: 51% agree none of their personal information is private anymore, and 51% say it is too much effort to protect their data (compared to 49% overall). 46% of Māori feel in control of their data privacy, the same as the general population.

 

Trust in Organisations

Only 21% of Māori have very high or high trust in government agencies to handle their personal information responsibly, compared to 31% of the general population — a 10-percentage-point gap.

Conversely, Māori show slightly higher trust in overseas-based businesses (17%) than the general population (11%). Trust in NZ based businesses (30%) and community organisations (25%) is broadly similar to overall results.

 

Confidence in NZ Law

Māori results on confidence in NZ privacy law are broadly similar to the general population — 21% are extremely or very confident, compared to 18% overall. However, a higher proportion of Māori (17%) have no confidence at all in the law, compared to 13% overall.

 

Privacy Act Awareness and Law Reform

Māori awareness that the Privacy Act gives them the right to access their personal information has increased to 56% (up 5%), now matching the general population figure of 55%.

On stronger enforcement powers for the Privacy Commissioner, Māori broadly align with the general population, though support has eased slightly from 2025: 73% of Māori support large fines for serious breaches (down 4%), 70% support audit powers (no change), and 67% support small infringement notices (down 6%).

On additional rights under the Privacy Act, Māori support is slightly lower than the general population across all four rights tested. The right to request erasure of personal information received the highest backing among Māori at 80%, compared to 86% overall.

Support among Māori for law changes to protect children’s privacy is the same as the general population at 88%, with 59% of Māori strongly agreeing.

 

Key Takeaways for Māori Data Sovereignty Context

The survey confirms several patterns of direct relevance to Māori AI and data governance work:

• The trust deficit with government agencies is significant and persistent. Māori are 10 points less trusting of government handling of their data than the general population, which has direct implications for any Crown-led AI or data integration initiatives.
• Facial recognition concern is markedly elevated among Māori across all four aspects tested, consistent with documented concerns about racial bias in these systems.
• The higher rate of “very concerned” responses (38% Māori vs 22% NZ European) suggests depth of concern that aggregate figures can obscure.
• Despite high concern, Māori privacy fatigue and sense of control mirror the general population, pointing to a gap between awareness of risk and capacity to act on it.

 

Methodology note: The survey included a deliberate Māori booster sample, bringing the total Māori sub-sample to n=428, with a margin of error of ±4.7% at the 95% confidence level. Fieldwork ran from 12 March to 1 April 2026.