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Evidence Act 2006

Admissibility rules, privilege, and confidentiality - Privilege and confidentiality - Privilege

64: Informers

You could also call this:

"People who secretly tell police about crimes without wanting their name shared"

Illustration for Evidence Act 2006

If you give information to the police or another enforcement agency about a possible crime, you might be called an informer. You are an informer if you give this information and expect that your name will not be told to others. You are still an informer if you get paid for the information or if you give it for free. You are only an informer if you are not called to court by the prosecution to talk about what you told them. An informer can be someone who works for the Police, but is working secretly, or someone who is not a police officer at all.

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM393676.

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"Giving up a secret or private information that you're allowed to keep"

Part 2Admissibility rules, privilege, and confidentiality
Privilege and confidentiality: Privilege

64Informers

  1. An informer has a privilege in respect of information that would disclose, or is likely to disclose, the informer’s identity.

  2. A person is an informer for the purposes of this section if the person—

  3. has supplied, gratuitously or for reward, information to an enforcement agency, or to a representative of an enforcement agency, concerning the possible or actual commission of an offence in circumstances in which the person has a reasonable expectation that his or her identity will not be disclosed; and
    1. is not called as a witness by the prosecution to give evidence relating to that information.

      1. An informer may be a member of the Police working undercover.