Sporting Shooters Call for Accountability by the Firearms Licensing Authority

Sporting Shooters are angry that the first known instance of license holder data being
leaked was the result of an entirely preventable error on the part of Authority staff.

SSANZ believes that this will validate licensed firearms owner’s concerns around the data security of the Authority and the security risks posed by the firearms registry.

Yesterday news media articles circulated the first publicly known instance of sensitive information being leaked from the Firearms Authority.

Despite the countless assurances that the information security of the Firearms Licensing Authority was first class, every licensed firearmsowner’s fear is now realized. The entirely preventable carelessness shown by the Authority has not only undermined the security of 147 license holders affected but also those that share their homes and the safety of the wider community.

The Sporting Shooters Association will be protesting to Police Minister Ginny Andersen as well as the Authority asking them why the remaining 232,000 licensed firearms owners should voluntarily supply the Authority with their sensitive information?

We will also want to know what assurances have been given to the 147 shooters whose privacy and security they compromised.

Licensed firearms owners are sick and tired of the ‘I told you so’ moments with Police/Authority conduct which we seem to have regularly.

If the Authority wants licensed firearms owners to stop lawfully avoiding activating circumstances for the registry (out of protest and well-founded concerns about data security), a step in achieving this is to have basic data handling protocols to prevent simple preventable mistakes like this from happening again.

An administrative blunder for the Authority is the undermining of privacy and security for license holders.

If the Authority is not held to account for this level of incompetence, then expect shooters to lose what little confidence they have in them to keep New Zealand safe.
—ENDS—


For more information contact:
Thomas Hemphill,
President of the Sporting Shooters Association of New Zealand
Tommy16410@hotmail.com
Phone – 02041470732


Lawmaking to make the already illegal, more illegal?

Just as everything the offender in Christchurch did was illegal, so are the mis-deeds of the ram-raiders.  Most of these raiders don’t even have drivers licences!  We can of course hope that their motor vehicles are registered.

The seemingly blithe assurance with which lawmakers idiotically create and pass laws with inordinate haste, leaving the law abiding to rue the unintended consequences of ill-considered legislation (which often repeats the intended controls of existing laws) tells us a lot more about the lawmakers than perhaps they intended.

Another unintended consequence perhaps?