{"id":108995,"date":"2025-10-30T14:54:20","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T14:54:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/108995\/"},"modified":"2025-10-30T14:54:20","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T14:54:20","slug":"more-inappropriate-material-found-as-police-staff-probed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/108995\/","title":{"rendered":"More inappropriate material found as police staff probed"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Sam Sherwood of RNZ<\/a><\/p>\n

Several police staff are under investigation, including an officer who has been stood down after inappropriate material was found on a police-issued device.<\/p>\n

It follows an\u00a0audit of staff internet usage\u00a0sparked by the resignation of former Deputy Police Commissioner Jevon McSkimming.<\/p>\n

McSkimming faces eight charges of\u00a0possessing objectionable publications, including child sexual exploitation and bestiality over a four-year period.<\/p>\n

Acting Deputy Police Commissioner Jill Rogers confirmed to RNZ a police officer had been stood down from duty for “inappropriate content on a police device”.<\/p>\n

“The officer is under employment investigation for serious misconduct, relating to inappropriate, but not objectionable, material on a Police-issued device. The alleged misconduct was uncovered through following recent audits of staff internet usage.<\/p>\n

“This has identified a small number of users of concern, which are now under review by the National Integrity Unit.”<\/p>\n

Police Commissioner Richard Chambers said the misconduct being investigated was uncovered as a result of the new monitoring measures introduced following the Rapid Review of the settings for police devices, launched after McSkimming’s resignation.<\/p>\n

“I sought that review because of my concern that such conduct was not being detected. This offers some reassurance that we now have the necessary tools to detect potentially inappropriate behaviour.”<\/p>\n

Police Minister Mark Mitchell told RNZ he had not been briefed on the allegations, but expected police to “take action on any matters that involve inappropriate behaviour”.<\/p>\n

The investigation into Jevon McSkimming led to concerns that staff could bypass internal controls and “exploit vulnerabilities to access inappropriate content”.<\/p>\n

The concerns prompted Chambers to order a “rapid review” of police’s information security (INFOSEC) controls to ensure police had sufficiently strong controls to prevent or detect the misuse of police technology and equipment for non-work-related purposes.<\/p>\n

A summary of the review said the main risks were; weaknesses in technology configuration, lack of visibility over user activity and gaps in governance.<\/p>\n

The report included key findings and recommendations in relation to each of the risks.<\/p>\n

There was “inconsistent application” of internet access policies across different workgroups as well as a “lack of robust filtering mechanisms” to consistently prevent access to unauthorised websites.<\/p>\n

The review also found there was “insufficient monitoring of internet usage to detect and respond to potential security threats and inappropriate usage”.<\/p>\n

Other findings included unmanaged devices being used for operational activities and inadequate monitoring of user activity and network traffic.<\/p>\n

There was an absence of centralised logging and analysis tools to detect anomalies and potential issues and “insufficient resources allocated to continuous monitoring and incident response”.<\/p>\n

The review also said there was a lack of “clear governance structures and accountability” for INFOSEC controls, with “inconsistent enforcement” of security policies and procedures.<\/p>\n

The report called for “improved oversight and coordination among different workgroups”.<\/p>\n

Among the recommendations was that police implement consistent internet access policies across all work groups and use advanced filtering mechanisms to block unauthorised websites.<\/p>\n

It was also recommended that police enforce policies to ensure all devices were managed and monitored, and that they allocate resources to “continuous monitoring and incident response”.<\/p>\n

In relation to the concerns about governance, the report recommended police established clear structures and accountability for INFOSEC controls and “ensure consistent enforcement of security policies and procedures”.<\/p>\n

“Addressing these issues through the recommended actions will enhance operational security, visibility, and policy enforcement, ensuring a robust INFOSEC posture,” the report said.<\/p>\n

Chambers earlier said the review made clear the current settings were “not robust enough and urgent attention is required”.<\/p>\n

He has ordered the re-introduction of audits of data and internet usage on police devices and initiated an assessment of police-owned standalone devices which operated outside the police network.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Sam Sherwood of RNZ Several police staff are under investigation, including an officer who has been stood…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":108996,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-108995","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108995\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}