New Zealand government forges path to responsible AI with new framework
The government of New Zealand has launched an artificial intelligence framework for the public service, setting out a roadmap to safe deployment of AI across government departments.
Paul James, the government’s chief digital officer, said the framework would help the government use AI to “create value for New Zealanders while maintaining trust and confidence in the public service”.
He added that harnessing AI in this way could “significantly improve customer experience and boost efficiency and productivity”.
What’s in the framework?
The framework sets the government’s vision, principles, national policy context, and work programme with respect to its AI ambitions. The overarching vision is to adopt AI “responsibly to modern public services and deliver better outcomes for all New Zealanders”.
To achieve this, the government will seek to “transition equitably” from legacy systems to AI systems that have human-centred values baked into their design. These values include the rule of law, human and labour rights, and values integral to democratic participation.
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This will involve a degree of “human oversight”, sometimes referred to as the ‘human-in-the-loop’ principle among AI experts. Transparency of outcomes, data protection and accountability through regulation and auditing, meanwhile, are expected to underpin government’s adoption of AI.
The country’s Treaty of Waitangi, a constitutional document that guides the relationship between the Crown in New Zealand and the country’s Māori population, also factors in the framework. It states that public service commitments under the treaty and Māori views of AI are to inform areas such as ethics, bias and data.
The framework states separately that any policies that are found to be “acting as a barrier to or enabler of AI adoption” will inform government’s actions on artificial intelligence going forward.
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Government agencies will have access to support in their adoption of AI under the framework. Such support will include capability-building schemes, as well as implementing a policy ‘safety by design’. These measures will help fulfil other pillars of the work programme, such as strengthening public trust in AI by ensuring human accountability for the inclusive implementation of citizen data and use of AI.
James said that key public service agencies had had their use of AI surveyed in 2024, and that the insights from this had been published.
“We will be publishing further tools and resources for agencies, including updating the system lead’s advice for use of generative AI, in 2025,” he added.
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Five Eyes on AI
New Zealand’s framework adds to an accumulative effort by governments of the Five Eyes nations – the US, UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand – to set national agendas for the development of AI.
In September, New Zealand published its Action Plan for the Digital Strategy for Aotearoa (the Māori-language name for New Zealand). In that action plan, the government framed the potential of AI in society around the urgency of creating a “trustworthy and ethical data ecosystem”.
The government also said it would “explore the merits of a Centre for Data Ethics and AI”, which it added would make strong contributions to the “Mahi Tika” (Trust) pillar of the digital strategy, as well as contribute to “Mahi Ake” (Growth) and “Mahi Tahi” (Inclusion) by supporting new business models and fostering an equitable data ecosystem.
The framework echoes the government’s ambition, expressed in the action plan, of making New Zealand “a leading global voice in data governance”. Specifically, the framework underscores the country’s aspiration to become a “trusted global partner and public service AI enabler”.
Read more: AI strategies across the Five Eyes nations
About Jack Aldane
Jack is a British journalist, cartoonist and podcaster. He graduated from Heythrop College London in 2009 with a BA in philosophy, before living and working in China for three years as a freelance reporter. After training in financial journalism at City University from 2013 to 2014, Jack worked at Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters before moving into editing magazines on global trade and development finance. Shortly after editing opinion writing for UnHerd, he joined the independent think tank ResPublica, where he led a media campaign to change the health and safety requirements around asbestos in UK public buildings. As host and producer of The Booking Club podcast – a conversation series featuring prominent authors and commentators at their favourite restaurants – Jack continues to engage today’s most distinguished thinkers on the biggest problems pertaining to ideology and power in the 21st century. He joined Global Government Forum as its Senior Staff Writer and Community Co-ordinator in 2021.
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