New Zealand Customs is tracking your overseas travel. Here’s how

Flying back into New Zealand last week, I wasn’t at all surprised to be taken aside to be questioned over my recent whereabouts. While I live in Canada, my work as a journalist means I’ve spent the last year in and out of Ukraine, and in recent years I’ve travelled to a host of other countries (Palestine, Saudi Arabia) not exactly high on the typical traveller’s bucket list.

So, when a New Zealand Customs Service officer greeted me at baggage claim last Sunday at Auckland Airport, asking me to follow them to answer a few questions and for a search of my baggage, I wondered why it had taken so long for me to be flagged as a suspicious arrival.

But the officer said it was because I had just been on holiday in Mexico, considered a high-risk destination — and then I was really confused. Shuffled through to a cordoned-off area full of large stainless steel benches and Customs officers fishing through the depths of unsuspecting travellers’ bags – which you might recognise from the television series Border Patrol – the entire contents of mine and my husband’s suitcases were pulled out for inspection.

The questions I was asked by the Customs agent were routine – “Did you pack your own bags?”, “What were you doing in Mexico?”, “What do you do for a job?” – until another officer walked over and asked what I’d been doing in Poland, and confusion ensued.

As it turned out, my last flight out of New Zealand, in April last year, was to Rzeszow, Poland – one of the closest border towns to Ukraine and one that has become a hub for journalists, aid teams and fighters alike. For that reason, the second Customs officer told me, their ticketing system had flagged the destination, and in turn me, as a potential risk. Mexico had nothing to do with it. It was news to me that the New Zealand Customs Service had access to the ticketing systems of the world’s airlines. But they do – and they use it to screen each and every passenger that arrives into the country.

In response to questions, Customs were forthcoming about the way the system works.

“Customs risks assesses all passengers travelling to New Zealand. We use a rules-based targeting system to detect a broad range of border-related offending including drug smuggling, immigration risks, terrorism and financial crime,” Jared Nicholson, Customs Manager Integrated Targeting & Operations Centre, told Stuff.

“Customs run this automated, rules-based targeting system across Passenger Name Records (booking information held by airlines), passport and flight data before the passengers arrive in New Zealand.

“We also consider individual risk factors which, when combined into a rules-based targeting system, can identify people of interest. This could include previous travel to certain countries, or travel to conflict areas.”

However, there are obvious limitations to the scope of what Customs can actually see. Nicholson says the system can’t check the destination of everyone who leaves New Zealand because onward tickets can be bought in transit overseas. In my case, for example, they couldn’t say for certainty that I’d actually gone into Ukraine – because that portion of the travel was purchased separately (and it was train travel, because the air space is closed). But just going close enough to a conflict area – or a “hub destination,” according to Customs — is enough to get you flagged.

Upon request, Customs released my file to me. It’s pretty nondescript – a standard-looking computer entry showing my full name, date of birth, gender, citizenship and passport number and expiry date. Under that, it shows the three flights that took me from Auckland to Rzeszow last year – including dates, times and my seat number.

“This helped us to establish the details of your travel including the flight from New Zealand to Doha, then on to Warsaw, then to Rzeszow-Jasionka Airport, which is a town on the border with Ukraine,” Nicholson said. When asked whether anyone travelling to Poland right now would be flagged by the ticketing system, Customs would not specifically say, but said travel history is just one factor considered while assessing risk, and their focus is to “facilitate legitimate international travel.”

When asked what Customs is looking for when people return from Ukraine, they also would not say, because it “may prejudice our border role and the investigation of offences.”

But during our search last week, the officer told us those who had recently gone to collect the body of Kane Te Tai were subject to the same scrutiny. He also said they were looking into whether those who were travelling to Ukraine to fight, which is not an offence, were “fighting for the right side.” When asked what this meant, Nicholson simply said: “This was likely said in an attempt by the officer to build rapport.”

However, Nicholson did confirm that the service had identified people travelling to visit and fight in conflict regions, which was used to determine the “likelihood of an individual bringing in restricted/prohibited military items.”

“Being militarily trained or having experience of war is not a standalone indicator, but it is relevant if other indicators were identified alongside it, for example evidence of extremist ideology.

“For threat assessments we examine both the intent, and capability.” So, is it only conflict areas that Customs are interested in – or will a holiday to Jordan or South Korea or Lebanon result in a flag and a search, too? Customs wouldn’t say – because, according to them, it could “prejudice our investigation of offences.

But Nicholson did say the service was interested in “some specific destinations, which may assist us to detect possible border-related offending.”