New Zealand Orders Investigation Into Failed NZ$33M Immigration Biometric Project

New Zealand’s Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment says the Public Service Commission will investigate integrity issues tied to a failed biometric project that cost NZ$33 million and was meant to modernize Immigration New Zealand’s identity management. The Biometric Capability Update was discontinued in November of last year without delivering, and an independent review of the project has now prompted the wider integrity inquiry.

The project was intended to upgrade the core of how Immigration New Zealand verifies identities. Begun in 2018, the Biometric Capability Update was to modernize and future-proof the agency’s biometric identity matching for travelers, migrants, and refugees, the system that confirms who applicants are during visa and border processing. After seven years it was shut down with that goal unmet.

The independent review was sharply critical of how the work was run. It found excessive optimism about delivery timelines, inadequate governance, and a pattern of dismissing quality-assurance concerns and staff warnings about whether the project was viable. Those findings, rather than the technology itself, are what triggered the Public Service Commission’s investigation into integrity issues around the project.

“We have fallen short of the Government and public’s expectations,” said Nic Blakeley, Chief Executive of MBIE, who said it was integral that the public can have confidence in the ministry. MBIE says it is reviewing its major technology projects, strengthening project management, and seeking independent verification of its practices, while the commission will also run an assurance review of a separate MBIE services programme.

The collapse ends a project that had been publicly assigned to a major vendor. NEC was named to lead the Biometric Capability Upgrade, originally framed as a multi-year effort to speed identity processing and share biometric data with partner nations, even as New Zealand separately advanced consumer-facing identity work such as a national digital ID app. The investigation now turns to how the immigration project failed.

Sources: New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment

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By Cass Kennedy