The following is a follow-up to my earlier article, Online Access to New Zealand's Archives' Records Removed After Potential Privacy Breach, that is still available at: https://eogn.com/page-18080/13031299.

A Swedish company has apologised over months of security breaches at Archives New Zealand.

Technology failings since February have exposed at least 9000 restricted records.

They have shut down the public's, historians' and researchers' ability to search the archive for days at a time.

Axiell executive vice president Maria Wasing said the company was putting in "resources globally" to fix the Collections search system, at no additional cost to Archives.

"We, of course, apologise for the inconvenience that challenges with the system have caused Archives and users," she said.

The shutdowns, slowness and incompleteness of searching, and Archives' decision in 2020 to reduce opening hours at its reading rooms, have delayed court cases relying on historical records, according to lawyers and a High Court's notes.

Official Information Act documents say Axiell knew about the "syncing" error causing the breaches but did not tell Archives, which later told Axiell off.

Wasing, however, said: "We are working with Archives at every step of the way."

The OIA reports and emails suggest fixing the system will be expensive and take a long time, well into next year.

You can read more at: https://tinyurl.com/2v4mbwe5