Police have no idea how many photographs of Māori youth are stored in its intelligence database, but continue to insist officers are not racially profiling them.
In March, RNZ revealed police were approaching innocent rangatahi, photographing them, collecting their personal details and sending it all to the police database 'NIA'.
Police spokesperson Chris de Wattignar now says police can't say how many photos of Māori youth are stored in the database because when an officer submits intelligence on youth, the attached photographs are not always of a young person.
He told reporter Te Aniwa Hurihanganui, analysing the ethnic data in NIA would require a huge amount of work, and would still not be enough to prove racial profiling was occurring.
