evidoria

← Back to browse

Good practice Imported

Algorithm Charter for Aotearoa New Zealand — a Voluntary Framework Still Short of Universal Sign-Up

New Zealand · Wellington · See the New Zealand profile · See the Wellington profile

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported Top 62% 53/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Launched in 2020 after a 2018 government-wide algorithm review, New Zealand's Algorithm Charter commits agencies to transparency principles, but only around 30 of many eligible agencies had signed by 2024, and a 2021 review found data-heavy holdouts.

~30
Government agencies signed to the Algorithm Charter (2024)

Details

Maturity
Established
Promoter
Stats NZ
Period
2018–2024
Keywords
AI governance, public administration, digital ethics, transparency

Context

New Zealand's Algorithm Charter grew out of Stats NZ's October 2018 Algorithm Assessment Report, which reviewed government agencies' use of operational algorithms and found substantial oversight already in place.

Objectives

Published in July 2020 as a deliverable of the 2018-2020 Open Government Partnership National Action Plan, the Charter commits signatory agencies to six principles: transparency, Treaty of Waitangi partnership, a people focus, data fitness, privacy/ethics/human rights, and human oversight.

Activities

Signatory agencies self-assess their own algorithmic risk against the six commitments; there is no centrally published per-system record, and adherence remains voluntary rather than mandated.

Results

By July 2024, roughly 30 government agencies had signed the voluntary Charter, but the first independent review in July 2021 found that a number of data-heavy agencies had still not signed on.

Conclusions

The Charter remains a principles-based, voluntary framework rather than a binding, auditable register like the UK's ATRS or Canada's AI Register, and New Zealand has not published an equivalent public per-algorithm inventory.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Low (< €50k)
Time to results
Medium (1–3 years)
Staffing & skills
Stats NZ (oversight), signatory agencies' internal risk/algorithm assessors

Conditions for success

  • voluntary buy-in from data-heavy agencies
  • periodic independent review (e.g., the 2021 review)
  • self-assessment processes within each signatory agency

Common failure modes

  • voluntary nature leaves data-heavy holdout agencies unsigned
  • no centralised per-algorithm public register, limiting auditability

Where it fits

Governance type
national government charter (voluntary)
Scale
national
Income level
high-income

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes

Indicative funding routes for practices of this type — always check each programme's current calls and eligibility rules.

Do you run this practice? Claim it — verified implementers get a public contact pathway and can propose corrections.

Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

Similar practices you may find useful