One Register to Rule them All: what Stats NZ is planning behind closed doors
Misuse of personal data at Manurewa Marae is just the tip of the iceberg in what has been revealed as a monster data-centralising project.
Bonnie Flaws
Part one of a four part investigation by Bonnie Flaws. Read parts two, three and four.
- StatsNZ is creating a Persistent Unique IdentIfier (PUI) for each citizen to track them over time in an Integrated Statistical Data System – or ‘Statistical Register’.
- The new system will link business, location and population registers giving a nearly complete picture of a persons life over time
- The data in this register will be updated in real time as it becomes available, moving away from data ‘snapshots’ that only show a moment in time
- A Stats NZ insider is concerned this power will be abused
- An explanation of terms can be found here
The scandal we know about
Data is digital gold, as we’ve recently seen firsthand.
The Public Service Commission investigation into misuse of data at Manurewa Marae revealed that voters on the Māori Roll in the Tāmaki Makaurau electorate were exploited and their data commandeered for what looks like political gain.
It’s alleged that personal data collected during the 2023 Census and Covid-19 vaccination efforts was misused to benefit Te Pāti Māori’s election campaign.
Former chief executive of Stats NZ, Mark Sowden, rightly fell on his sword for not putting in place appropriate safeguards and working on an inappropriate “high trust model”.
It was also revealed that Health NZ failed to ensure sensitive health data was properly safeguarded at the marae. The Public Service Commission found that a “gate was left open”. Contracts lacked provisions for audits or compliance checks, allowing outside providers unrestricted access to files. In the aftermath, the agency urgently revised contracts to enable audits and conflict-of-interest checks.
Despite following privacy laws, Health NZ never ensured providers met security standards. While no misuse of data collection has been confirmed, authorities stress the need for stricter data protections to maintain public trust in health information security.
All this calls into question the quality of leadership and the depths of public service integrity. After the reports came out, the Democracy Project’s Bryce Edwards said in a scathing assessment of our institutions:
“We are often told that there is no corruption in New Zealand, and that our public service and electoral system are robust and free from manipulation and conflicts of interest. But the two official reports released yesterday about the allegations of misuse of resources and data by organisations aligned with Te Pāti Māori should put such myths to bed.”
Well, the dust hasn’t settled yet.
An overview of the IDI and its data sources
The IDI: the database you might have heard of (but probably not)
With all that incompetence and, perhaps, corruption on the table, consider the inherent danger of a Stats NZ project to create a unique ID for each and every New Zealand citizen currently underway.
The agency has not exactly front-footed the public communications on what it’s doing.
You may have already heard of the Integrated Database Infrastructure (IDI), a person and household database that has been developed since 2011, which collects de-identified data from tax, social welfare, the justice system, education and health records. It has attracted scrutiny from journalists and academics for holding this information, which is justified as a tool for research and public policy.
Along with data from the Justice Department, IRD, Ministry of Health, Ministry for Social Development, Ministry of Education, Kainga Ora, the IDI also compiles its people profiles from Police crime records and many other smaller sources.
It was developed under the 1975 Statistics Act, but this was replaced in 2022 by the Data & Statistics Bill, which has been a controversial piece of legislation from the off, drawing criticism from three former Government Statisticians and the Council for Civil Liberties. More to come on that, but suffice to say it has never been widely consulted on.
Hailed as an incredible research tool, it’s a double edged sword. Integrated Data played a big role in the government’s response to Covid-19, including in projects run by Shaun Hendy’s team at the University of Auckland, which fed directly into the National Crisis Management Centre’s response. Treasury also used it to model the effects of different lengths of lockdown on schools, the economy and businesses, while MBIE used it to analyse the effects of lockdown on business and workers – cold comfort for many no doubt, when those policies are considered to be at the heart of the country’s increasing lack of social cohesion.
An Stats NZ insider who spoke to me on condition of anonymity believes that if the public knew more about what the IDI holds about them, they might be nervous about the potential for government overreach.
According to the source, getting IDI access does have a lot of controls and requires interviews and confidentiality training to access. But it also has weaknesses such as a lack of auditing for the researchers who might be accessing it.
Usually, a research project gets access to only a specific dataset for analysis, but sometimes a researcher might be on multiple projects over the years and accumulate access to multiple datasets, they say.
“No one checks to see if they are using their approved datasets for a specific project or not. It is up to the integrity and seniority of the researcher.”
While researchers are required to sign NDAs, more than 100 data breaches had already occurred by 2023. I’ve asked Stats NZ for more up to date figures but they were unable to get back to me in time for publication.
Also of concern, research from 2019 found that applications to use the IDI for research are reviewed internally by Stats NZ, with no mandatory external peer review or ethical approval across sectors. Furthermore, ethical standards for using IDI data vary across universities, government departments and private research entities.
All of Stats NZ data gathering powers rely on social license. But surveys have shown that there is actually low public trust around Stats NZs ability to keep data safe or even that it considers the public’s views in its decision making.
However, there may be considerably more reason to question the social license Stats NZ relies on today.
Stats NZ is working on a project that will link statistical business, location and population registers into one overarching statistical register. As of yet there is no population register, but they are building it.
The Everything Database: person-level tracking in real time, all the time
A multi-part Official Information Act request from April 2024 has revealed that since 2022, an initiative called the Statistical Register has been underway with the goal of linking an upgraded version of the IDI with an existing location register (a list of addresses and addressable objects) and a 30-year-old business register (containing information on business profits, sector, age and size) via IRD tax data. Development consultants Allen + Clarke describe it as “unlocking high value”.
In sector jargon, this Statistical Register would be the realisation of an ‘Integrated Statistical Data System’. What I have euphemistically called the ‘everything database’, because it is not far short of that. And as we will see, there is the potential to add all kinds of other data streams to this register, such as social media, supermarket spending or telecoms data for example.
“The amount that could be controlled when you know someone’s political views and address and workplace and family history might be too much power for one organisation,” the insider says.
Before Stats NZ can link all three registers, the IDI needs to be upgraded into a statistical population register.
The IDI becomes the IPS
To go a bit deeper, OIA responses further reveal that before Stats NZ can do the final ‘link-up’ of their registers, it must upgrade the current IDI, which is really only a prototype for what they want to do with the statistical person register.
It is implementing what they call an Interim PersonSpine (IPS), as an improvement to the current IDI prototype, to track people. Basically a population register.
To do this, it is moving from scheduled data updates to the collection of real-time data. Currently, the IDI uses refresh timelines – moments in time when the data on a person is updated, usually three times a year, and then probabilistically linked via a ‘spine’, usually the name and birthdate, which most agencies collect.
Each time the data is collected and updated Stats NZ creates a new unique identifier for every individual in its anonymisation process, so that it can’t make a longitudinal profile for each person using past data sets.
However, the IPS does away with the ‘refreshes’ to ongoing real-time updates, as and when the information from government agencies gets supplied to StatsNZ.
This diagram shows the planned evolution from Integrated Data Infrastructure to Integrated Person Spine to Statistical Person Register.
Persistent Unique Identifier
Here’s the kicker:
Once the business and location data are linked to the new IPS, they will have succeeded in creating a central register, with each person represented by a unique ID that can be tracked over time and tell a story about a person’s whole life, and even to track a person’s life events from birth. It’s referred to as a ‘Persistent Unique Identifier’ (PUI) in sector jargon.
The end result is the Statistical Register (everything database) plus a permanent digital tag for every person.
The eye of Sauron on everyone one of us, all the time, whether we want it or not.
Follow up questions were put to Stats NZ but they are now treating it as an OIA request and were not able to respond in time for publication. I will update readers with any response I receive in due course.
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Get Peter Thiel registered pronto!!
Sam…
Is pending a way to keep messages hidden for a while?
Its not Sam, its the IT system! Wake up Ricky, you live in the past. AI times in this very moment.
de-identified data or anonymisation
Contrary to propaganda, storing such data in an anonymous format remains theoretically infeasible. -Ross Anderson 2017
Face it: Privacy is a feature of the past.
Everybody is clay in the hands of global MSM. You are what the media decide you are:
A star on Tuesday and a dead herring on Thursday where everybody on this planet knows you have made and been a dummy.
Wow, talk about over-hyping it. Will they implant sensors in the person’s body to record heartbeat, when they shit, when they eat, what they eat etc. and if so, why? What is the benefit to the person? The benefit to nosy liberals is obvious, they get to see your life then order you to change it, but other than the power freaks, what is the benefit to the person who’s privacy has been robbed?
Our overlords only have our interests at heart. A cop might call you aside to ask why you – or your child – did not poop today.
Don’t worry. That’s what the lab grown meat is for.
Isn’t the endgame about selling more stuff ?
That is the Corparasite’s mantra.
Their filthy obsession.
Being ‘stalked’ by governments is just a back door method that corporations can use to peddle their wares.
When they know almost everything about us they can tailor their marketing to every single customer/victim.
Drugs, food, entertainment, travel, hobbies, even our sex lives are all up for grabs.
The revolution will be monetised.
Yes. At a certain and still not taking drugs for any of the “metabolic disease?”? That will not do.
Corporations can only deal with corporations. The Government is a (‘person’), corporation, and the police and justice system are corporations. So they had to make us all corporate dead entities as well. Whereby we are tricked into taking responsibility for all costs and rules.
The reason we have been made corporations is that everything we think we own is in our corporate legal person identity. Whereby we own fk all. We are a commodity, a securitised debt, there to cover the principal and interest owed to the corrupt banking system.
The crown is the trustee of our corporate estate, and if you want to take back control through knowledge, you become the beneficiary.
Charles Reich had the Bull (shit) by the horns:
https://metapsychosis.com/the-corporatization-of-just-about-everything/
Corporations can do as they please because they have the same ‘rights’ as persons.
Correct Johnny. Thank god some of you are getting this.
It’s our get-out-of-jail card. The police can only arrest our person. The courts can only notify our person. The government only has authority over our person.
To live in their corrupt matrix universe, we need to accept our legal person ID. It’s our passports and driving licences. This is a fictional id to which we can take representation, but we must NEVER EVER take responsibility, and never accept as being who we are.
Always ask for full disclosure when registering anything, and remember your bank account is in your legal person ID. So always stay in the red.
The fkrs will use every bit of legalese trickery against ‘YOU’.
But clue yourself up.
Amusing angle
The Demons which lurk in your Unconscious have many names’
A few of their names are ‘Marxism’, ‘Communism’, ‘Socialism’,
‘The Left’. And they all eat babies for breakfast…
…And others have names like “fascism”, “fascist capitalism”, “trumpism”, “imperialism”, “far right.” And they all ban transgenders for lunch…
And, in the UK, the NHS are to be instructed to record the DNA of all new borns “to assess for disease risk”. Yeah right
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1ljg7v0vmpo
Under a long-term contract, the UK data goes to Google. Or is it to God’s gift to philanthrophy?
Once they have your DNA they could develop viruses to specifically target those. Say the data says persons with DNA markers “whatever” are a problem in society so let’s do away with them. Or persons with DNA markers “whatever” are costing the system 40% more in healthcare costs. Let’s fix that. The possibilities are endless.
It’s totally possible.
When you register anything you give ownership away. Regis ( the crown).
Everything you register, ie, your home:- Your corrupt lawyer will create a legal document called a title deed. Its full of legalese bullshit. They capitalise your name and send the original document to the Land Registry. By holding the original land deed and corporatising your name they take ownership.
I agree,
Also, in order to rise to the next kingdom, or something, do we have to realise where we are here ?
Few people ??? can realise
Unless you force them to recognize you as a person, then you take ownership.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06-23/sovereign-citizens-western-australia-jailed/105448650
Two of you delusional SovCits have just been jailed in Western Australia. NB: you people are giving a gift to the Cabal, look how one of their legaloid minions is slavering over settling your and then by extension, our hash:
QUOTE ” University of South Australia Associate Professor Joe McIntyre researches sovereign citizens and pseudo-law, and said he understood the case to be the first of its kind.
He said courts had shown “real restraint” in handling sovereign citizens.
But he said action was necessary to “stamp out these really disruptive movements”.
Who are YOU, Jenner?
You are very good at double speech and are involved in hiding the truth.
I will ask you a few simple questions.
Why is our name in ALL CAPS and or with a title on our PASPORT, DRIVING LICENCE, V5, TITLE DEEDS, ALL LEGAL DOCUMENTS, TAX DOCUMENTS, COMPANY DIRECTORSHIPS, AND BANK ACCOUNTS?
Remember, all corporations are written in ALL CAPS, as is the name on our gravestone when we really are a dead entity.
Why can the police only charge our legal person fiction?
Why can the court only write to our legal person fiction?
Why is the CESTUI QUE VIE ACT still active?
Why the fk don’t YOU ask all those involved in high office who are involved in the above criminal, fraudulent entities to provide YOU with full disclosure.
Courts don’t frighten me because I never go unless they provide disclosure, which they never do. BECAUSE they are the criminals committing fraud.
Get educated for a change Rickypop, because your capital letters vapouring and your Cestui qui vie BS are based on sheer ignorance of ancient Roman and modern UK history. But then I never came across an educated pseudolaw groupie yet.
Re: Capitalisation:
A u s t r a l i a n P s e u d o l a w A r g u m e n t a t i o n | 36
The Evil Conspiracy to Capitalise Lettering
Because the titles of court cases identify the parties in all capital letters, the persons identified are
theorised by pseudolaw adherents to be “fictitious entities” and “STATE v. JOHN Q. SMITH” has no
authority over the defendant, “John Q. Smith” because the capitalization of the name means the court is
addressing a person who does not exist. Similar arguments have also been raised unsuccessfully about
things such as the presence or absence of punctuation, or of a middle name or middle initial.
A fundamental part of the “strawman concept” is that capital lettering implies “loss of status” due to the
Ancient Roman doctrine of “Capitis diminutio maxima, media, and minima”. There were three rankings
of legal status or recognition in Roman law, “Capitis diminutio minima” denoting the highest status,
“Capitis diminutio media” the middle class, and “Capitis diminutio maxima” the lowest status, that of a
slave.
This we know to be a historic fact, in an ancient empire, at a time when slavery was a commonly
accepted practice throughout the known world, and every civilized society required laws to govern the
keeping of slaves. Pseudolaw theory however… places a whole additional meaning on the doctrine of
“Capitis diminutio maxima, media, and minima”.
The theory insists that when writing the ‘Roman persons’ name, the “Capitis maxima” part implied
CAPITAL or UPPER CASE LETTERING, while the “minima” implied LOWER CASE LETTERING.
This concept was obviously created in haste though, as they were desperately mining outdated law
dictionaries for an obscure Latin phrase to suit the new conspiracy theory about capital lettering. There
was a fundamental fact they overlooked completely, and it appears everyone that believes this theory
also has, due to a complete absence of fact-checking.
FACT: When “Capitis diminutio maxima, media, and minima” existed in Roman law, THERE WAS NO
SUCH THING AS “LOWER-CASE” LETTERING for any such difference
Re; Cestui qui vie:
What is it about “replaced completely” that even a pseudolaw white-anting delusional cannot comprehend?
The Original Act now has a footnote that states…
“There are currently no known outstanding effects for the Cestui Que Vie Act 1666.”
This is because after being amended several times by the Statute Law Revision Act 1886, Statute Law
Revision Act 1888, and the Statute Law Revision Act 1948, the Cestui Que Vie Act 1666 was replaced
completely by the Presumption of Death Act 2013.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/aep/Cha2/18-19/11/contents
“A u s t r a l i a n P s e u d o l a w A r g u m e n t a t i o n | 53
The Cestui Que Vie Act 1666
The Cestui Que Vie Act 1666 is totally misconceived by pseudolaw adherents. The theory implies that state
ownership of their body applies via the birth registration process, and unless this presumption is lawfully
refuted before the time period of seven years elapses after registration, they become the property of the
state, having been declared legally dead, or “lost at sea”.
This is quite a fantastical proposition, based on a ridiculous abstract speculation regarding the intention of
the 1666 Act. It is the foundation for their mythical version of “Maritime Admiralty Law” which they claim
is the jurisdictional reason for the enforceability of statute law”
Watch the wording, Jenner. We are not PERSONS, we are men and women.
Just answer my previous questions.
I’m only one and have not been jailed, so those two must belong to you
But how, in practicable terms, can someone actually do this?
What is the process?
Once I’m off pending, I will explain.
Experience grasshopper, experience is the only thing that can do it.
Procurator Fiscal v YOU. YOU is the person. The PF represents the crown, who is the trustee of your person. As a trustee, they are guilty of any offence committed where there is no injured party.
By asking YOU your name and YOU answering them, you take responsibility from the crooked fkrs upon yourself.
Who needs colonial trustees besides the crown? They cant even run their own life, i’ll be damned if they try to run mine
An important series by Bonnie Flaws. She outlines what she, like many others, sees as the main problem: building a digital panopticum for the 1984 society of observation and control.
Younger, growing up in a continuous interaction in the digital world, see it in a slightly different way as less threatening, and the even younger, born in and unfamiliar with another world before the digital age, even more so.
I ask myself: if the growing centralized all-observing system, which has all of our data duly packaged into each person’s personal digital file, hypothetically, would not be used to carry out such draconian dystopian control (and consequently, modelling human behavior by coercion to comply with multiple rules, carried out by instantaneous registration and correction of the corresponding “incorrect” actions), then would it be good?
Some will immediately counter me: and why are they building it at all, if they’re not going to use it to subjugate and model people? Perhaps so. But perhaps they are building this system (and those systems around the world that will achieve interoperability), for the future; in the future will live the younger, and even more the youngest (who not knowing another world besides that of the digital era), and even more the unborn, who will be born in the even more advanced technological world. How would they view such a system? Will they see this as a minimally required system for the realization of normal life (which for them is unthinkable beyond a constant connection with the digital world, the Internet)?
So my question — because I guess everyone has heard it, and some people think exactly that, opinions like “these technologies and systems can be used for both good and evil, like everything else” — is: if such a system were built (and, of course, it would be part of a world with many times as many and most widespread different high technologies) and it would not be used for total control and modeling, no more than it is now used, with its smartphones and endless applications, the Internet with social networks and everything else, would it be good?
Perhaps, after the eventual establishment of such systems, future people will not distinguish between freedom and slavery, since they will not know what it was before (you know, we live in the “best time, with the most democracy”, haha… well, is always possible and worse, and much worse even than this imitative democracy). And maybe they will make a distinguish, and that difference will be that our world now, and the efforts of some of us to preserve our freedoms (including trying to oppose the construction of digital panopticum systems for control) will seem to them as primitive and limiting, a slavery, against the background of the opportunities and amenities that the “freedom” of their (future for us) world offers them.
If they still distinguish between freedom and slavery, and such a 1984 system is imposed, then the chance of at least partial failure – perhaps not a grandios Hollywood-style uprising, but the creation of some resistance – would be significant.
But if this system is not so rigid and rough, clearly imposing control, but is like “using the same technologies and the opportunities they offer for good (less evil)”, then the chance of a possible rebellion and turnaround seems not very great. The second option seems to me possible to be a very successful for sustainable integration of people in, so to speak, the “post-digital era” or the more digital one, where high technologies have developed (just as there was no desktops, laptops, smartphones with uninterrupted internet connection before…). How would these technologies evolve? (What comes after the digital age?)
Especially if it builds on a fundamental story, almost biblical, from the “newest covenant,” of dark times when humanity was on the verge of falling under total control through digital slave systems — perhaps through the authoritarian crazy liberals, the WEF and the UN, but perhaps through the fascist conservatives and Trumpler and Putler, with their insidious dark enlightenment system — but good prevailed, and now digital technology and high technology in general only serve for the best for humanity.
It’s not like that for me. In general, what it is now, with this interaction with digital technologies, without the deployed “beast system”, is already much more than it should be, the border has been crossed, people’s interaction with digital technologies is perverse and changing people (including myself), and anyone who remembers the pre-digital world should know. There’s a clear distinction between people who grew up in the pre-digital world and the others; there’s also a distinction between people who grew up in the pre-digital world, who then started interacting regularly with digital technologies, and those who didn’t. (They won’t agree, they’ll say they’re just using digital without being influenced in any way, I guess.)
It’s the pre-transhumanist era, widely adopted without violence, voluntarily, and nothing less, quite obvious (and if anyone thinks that’s the limit of technological development, they’ve probably forgotten the very recent world without computers, smartphones and the 24/7 internet).
Care to put a figure on how may terawatts of electricity are needed for all this to happen? Had a look at US power supply contracts in view of AI?
Solar and wind don’t cut it,, it will have to be nuclear.
Good luck to Harari and Schwab pushing that to the face-nappied. boostered Guardianistas who otherwise sign off on all that they are aiming it.
That’s why they backed off green. It wasn’t working as a means to control people and they can’t have it and AI technocracy. Same with DEI. They don’t need it anymore. You accept AI you accept their way of thinking, their morals, their norms, etc. They programmed it and taught it. Eventually they won’t be able to control it and it will all merge into one but by then you won’t be able to stop it. The NWO will have been achieved.
These are the same criminals that created the 2 World Wars, sending tens of millions to an early grave. They are evil to the core.
It can only lead to a one world government. AI models will all eventually merge creating one model and that model will control everyone on earth. Right now we have Chinese, US, British… but they will eventually learn from each other. Much like English. Nobody controls that language and most people speak it. AI will be no different. When brain implants come in the game is over. Then you cease to be an individual, your thoughts can be controlled, etc BUT worse society will collapse. Universities and schools will be useless. A 5yo with a brain implant will have as much knowledge as an adult. Etc.
ID’ing data collecting tracking – its happening all over, and it must surely end in control – no doubt there’s a PTB global data base – that stores it all, which has been happening for years as exposed by Snowden (Prism and Tempora).
What’s happening in NZ is nothing new and shouldn’t come as a surprise – NZ in this aspect is no different from any other nation – in that the end goal is control, using at first surveillance, ID’ing and data collecting – NZ is just catching up on the rest of the world – it wasn’t that long ago NZ had a mass shooting – with the lone nut – that surely must’ve led to gun restrictions in NZ – Jacinda Arden (ex-Tony Blair worker) opened the door wide for the PTB to enter and take control.
Now NZ is now as f*cked as the rest of the PTB controlled countries – its all downhill from here on in.
What are you saying? Are you trying to tell me something I dont know??
.
I don’t remember letting anyone distribute my photo without prior inquiry.
Ha ha…..it is for the good cause Armistice. Love yr neighbour as yourself!
If it’s about fighting technocrats, by artistic depiction of the consequences of their panoticonistic intentions, with which you aim to alert people’s minds, tune them to the wave of resistance, which eventually culminates in a Luddite rebellion and ultimate liberation, you have permission to distribute my photography, Mr. Nielsen.
*However, I must point out that my photograph in question does not in any way represent a sad look at the lost freedom, but on the contrary. The photo is part of a personal and intimate photo session that we made together with my beloved wife Miss Piggy Armistice II, immortalizing on the photo tape part of the intimate overture to the upcoming turbulent love game.
Specifically, in the picture you see me encased in a cage, dreamily observing the subtle and tender love dance of seduction performed by Miss Piggy outside the cage, in the middle of our living room, where she turns on her back, seductively shaking her lovely udders (and other things that I will save) in order to activate all my erogenous brain areas, awakening my desires and unleashing my imagination, which, shortly after, after the cell was unlocked, successfully became the most turbulent passion in our canopy love bed. (Because she had earlier frowned, “It’s as if the thrill between us has disappeared”, female works…)
You can imagine my great amazement when, a week or two later, a reporter from Pigileaks, unknown how obtained my computer password using the same image as the title image of his article, came out with the title “Leading critic of transpiganists – captured!! Pigutin finally puted PigArmistice behind bars, putting an end to his tireless revelations about Pigutin’s sinister plans to turn Russian pigs into cyborgs! We have the documents.”
On the contrary, I’m here and I won’t stop.
Someone’s knocking on the door, I’m going to open, bye for now.
By the way, Erik, because you’re a well-known Christian and the photo fragment of the grid is like a cross, at first I thought it was about consecrating a pig. (In order for it to be alive, healthy and blessed before flying to the oven and the blessed stomachs of the laity.)