500 signatures reached
To: Hon Dr Megan Woods, Minister of Housing
Open Letter: Kāinga Ora must stop their dodgy home sensor project
Recently, Housing New Zealand and KiwiBuild merged to become Kāinga Ora - the new public landlord for all of New Zealand’s state housing. Kāinga Ora is currently requesting proposals from people who make home sensors, so that they can begin to install sensors in state homes - starting with a trial across homes in Palmerston North and the Hutt Valley.
Home sensors can be a great tool for knowing the temperature, humidity and electricity use in your home and whether something like dampness or cold could be making you sick. At Whare Hauora, we make home health sensors accessible to vulnerable families across New Zealand so we understand how they work and the power home health data holds.
The problem is, Kāinga Ora wants to measure a lot of personal things inside their tenant’s homes - like private things we don’t think it’s ethical to measure - with no guarantee the information won’t be used against the tenants. And if that’s not bad enough, Kāinga Ora will own each family’s data, and won’t make it available to be seen by families themselves.
If this seems dodgy to you, please add your name to our open letter demanding Kāinga Ora scrap their home sensors project and start again with better ethics, engagement and transparency.
[Please note while Whare Hauora makes home sensors ourselves, all data is owned by the families who use them and we are not in competition for any Kāinga Ora contract due to such fundamental differences in data ethics and transparency]
Why is this important?
To: Hon Dr Megan Woods, Minister of Housing
Cc: Sir Brian Roche, Chair of the Board, Kāinga Ora
Cc: Andrew McKenzie, Chief Executive, Kāinga Ora
Cc: John Edwards, Privacy Commissioner
Dear Minister Woods,
Damp, cold, mouldy homes are a silent killer in New Zealand. Every year, poor housing conditions contribute to illnesses like pneumonia which can be fatal. Everyone in New Zealand should have a home that is warm and dry, especially those whose homes are provided by our government.
But nobody should have to sacrifice their privacy in order to have a healthy home.
Recently, the government ran a pilot which put sensors into state homes to collect home health information. With the pilot completed, they are now formally rolling out a Smart Homes project to many government-owned homes, which will use sensors to measure temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide emissions and information on power usage.
This week, Kāinga Ora will finish taking proposals from potential suppliers of home sensors so they can begin installing sensors in their tenant's homes next year, but we believe urgent changes must be made before this happens.
Why do changes need to be made?
The sensors provide Kāinga Ora with a lot of very personal information, including:
- When someone is at home.
- How many people are in the home.
- If someone has opened a window.
- When your curtains are closed or not.
This sensor data is owned by Kāinga Ora. As part of their privacy statement, they have said they may share that data with other government agencies, including the Ministry of Social Development who are responsible for welfare and benefit provisions to many Kāinga Ora tenants.
Families do not have easy access to either data collected about them and their house, or the insights gained from it. Given much of this home sensor information relates to a family’s health, but is not available to them to see, we believe this is a breach of the Health Information Privacy Code 1994. In addition, Kāinga Ora have only told tenants what measures they are collecting (temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide levels and power use), not what that data tells them (such as how many people are in the house).
When combined with the power imbalance between a government landlord and public housing tenants, families may feel pressured to agree to sensors in their home in order to get their damp, mouldy, cold homes fixed, but without understanding just how much privacy they’re giving up. This situation would not be one of genuine, informed, consent.
The combination of a lack of transparency and the ownership and sharing of family’s data with other government agencies creates a huge risk that family’s home sensor data will be used to control how whānau use their own homes, from policing how many visitors are in the house at any time, to cutting benefit payments to solo parents perceived to be in relationships, to evicting whānau for claimed overcrowding.
The potential for misuse of this data is so high that it should not be available to landlords and this project should not be collecting it.
We demand the following immediate action:
This project must be stopped. The current process of seeking vendors to provide sensors must be withdrawn. Kāinga Ora must be directed to create a process for replacing it that fully engages tenants, iwi and relevant experts, with the aim of a principled, ethical and legally-compliant outcome.
We seek the following changes to the program as part of any revised process:
1. Tenants must own the data generated by them and about them.
2. The data should be treated as medical data and handled under the Health Information Privacy Code 1994 (the “Code”). The purpose of this project is to improve the health of tenants by monitoring their houses and house use, so this should be classified as health data, and managed under the Code.
3. Tenants must be able to see the same data and insights as Kāinga Ora, without barriers. Currently, tenants have to make a request under the Privacy Act to get their information. This is totally unacceptable and a barrier for many people.
4. Immediately abandon use of carbon dioxide (CO2) sensors which can accurately measure how many people are in a house at any time.
5. Cancel use of power consumption sensors.This is exclusively a measure of tenant behaviour, not housing.
6. A complete reset of principles and community engagement. As it stands, the project does not outline any principles. Instead, it only focuses on outcomes for Kāinga Ora. There is no empathy, understanding or even acknowledgement of the potential issues and concerns for tenants. Furthermore, education and empowerment - which are a major part of the ability to make change - are not mentioned. Kāinga Ora must restart and engage meaningfully and honestly with communities, sharing the implications of data collection, and listening and acting on concerns.
7. Honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Kāinga Ora states they want to partner with Māori and iwi, but so far, the project has completely failed to honour Te Tiriti. Whānau have no autonomy over their own data, the technology and potential solutions for this project, and Kāinga Ora have not highlighted any engagement with hapū, iwi or Māori. As a Crown entity, the role of Kāinga Ora is one of a Te Tiriti partner. They must honour this meaningfully.
The next phase of this project cannot begin without early engagement with hapū, iwi and Māori. Anything else is against both Te Tiriti o Waitangi principles and the Bill that gives Kāinga Ora its mandate.
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We the undersigned demand Kāinga Ora immediately stop their home sensors project and start again with better ethics, engagement and transparency.