Records and archives

We hold the records of all the organisations that have been responsible for New Zealand’s security intelligence since 1919.

We sometimes proactively release records that are of public interest.

Our archives hold:

  • New Zealand Police’s security intelligence records from 1919 to 1941, and from 1945 to 1949
  • All the Security Intelligence Bureau’s records from 1941 to 1945
  • Most of the New Zealand Police Special Branch records from 1949 to 1956
  • All the New Zealand Security Service’s records from 1956 to 1969
  • All our own records, from 1969 to date.

Common types of information held includes:

  • Reports on organisations and individuals of security interest
  • Administrative and policy information
  • Operational information.

We are committed to telling our story by releasing as many historical records as we can over time while maintaining our obligations to respond to Privacy Act and the Official Information Act requests within legal time frames.

We declassify records before releasing them

Before we can release anything, we need to declassify it. This can take time, especially when we need to get approval from overseas partners. Security or privacy concerns may prevent us from releasing some records.

We have established a pilot to start systematic declassification of our archives. The pilot will help us estimate the resources required to declassify the large quantities of archives we hold over time.

Previously released records

You can find the records we’ve released on the Archives New Zealand website.

Check the Archives New Zealand database for publicly available records(external link)

The first records we released to Archives New Zealand were Special Branch files about the 1951 waterfront dispute. These became available to the public on 27 March 2008. Since then, we’ve released records about the Second World War and early Cold War period.