Honouring Te Tiriti in our work

E ngā mana, e ngā reo, e ngā hau whā, tēnā koutou katoa. Kei ngā ringa raupā o Tāmaki Makaurau, mokori anō kia mihia koutou i te āhua o tō koutou noho haumaru i te kainga. Tēnā rawa atu koutou.

Over the past two years, the DINZ Executive Council has been on a journey to strengthen our cultural capabilities and deepen our understanding of our responsibilities to Te Tiriti o Waitangi. We understand that our responsibility to guide conversations and decisions relating to digital identity means that we must acknowledge and understand Māori perspectives of identity. We also seek to engage with the Māori communities we serve to ensure that we are working in partnership and that mana whenua have the agency to inform our future.

Our DINZ Executive Council engaged in professional learning to support us to develop our Tiriti o Waitangi Statement of Intent and Action Plan. We were fortunate that one of our DINZ Executive Council members (Janelle Riki-Waaka, CORE Education), is an experienced Tiriti Education consultant and so we began our journey to understand more deeply the historical context of Aotearoa and unpack each of the articles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi in order to articulate our understanding of tiriti-honouring practice.

We have now created our first draft of DINZ’s Te Tiriti o Waitangi Statement of Intent and Action Plan and we seek to gather your thoughts, perspectives and recommendations. This is an aspirational plan that will continue to develop and shift as our own understanding continues to deepen.

You will find a copy of the draft statement for your viewing here.

We serve the digital identity community and so your input is valuable to us to guide our actions and intent. We ask that you read our draft action plan and provide feedback on this mahi. If you have any questions, suggestions or reflections, please email info@digitalidentity.nz before November 30th. Please also join us at 10am that day for a korero by registering at this link so we may consider it in advance of formally publishing these statements in December.

DINZ news and updates:

Our Working Group to prepare DINZ’s submission to the Select Committee regarding the Digital Identity Services Trust Framework Bill is up and running for members and is expected to remain active beyond the submission date of December 2nd 2021, as the legislation progresses and operationalisation of the Trust Framework Rules follows its enactment.

The Ministry of Health New Zealand has announced MATTR‘s role in the provision of technologies to support the rollout of both COVID-19 domestic vaccination passes and international vaccination certificates.

Kudos and congratulations to DINZ member APLYiD for securing Series A funding and expansion into the UK.

Early registrations are open for next year’s not-to-miss Digital Trust Aotearoa Hui Taumata/summit, 19 May, Wellington.

Several DINZ members made us aware of their news these past few weeks. Please share your news stories with us at info@digitalidentity.nz so that we can amplify them for you.

Ngā mihi nui,

Colin Wallis
Executive Director