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Aotearoa New Zealand's response to the COVID-19 pandemic has included the use of algorithms that could aid decision making. Te Pokapū Hātepe o Aotearoa, the New Zealand Algorithm Hub, was established to evaluate and host COVID-19 related models and algorithms, and provide a central and secure infrastructure to support the country's pandemic response. A critical aspect of the Hub was the formation of an appropriate governance group to ensure that algorithms being deployed underwent cross-disciplinary scrutiny prior to being made available for quick and safe implementation. This framework necessarily canvassed a broad range of perspectives, including from data science, clinical, Māori, consumer, ethical, public health, privacy, legal and governmental perspectives. To our knowledge, this is the first implementation of national algorithm governance of this type, building upon broad local and global discussion of guidelines in recent years. This paper describes the experiences and lessons learned through this process from the perspective of governance group members, emphasising the role of robust governance processes in building a high-trust platform that enables rapid translation of algorithms from research to practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ethics underlying official statistics are best articulated in the twelve Principles of Official Statistics adopted by the United Nations Statistics Commission in 1994. While national statistics offices endeavour to adhere to these principles, they face different challenges in different countries. New Zealand has a small population (four million) of whom a high proportion (just under 15%) identify as of Maori (indigenous) ethnicity. Our ethical issues reflect our specific circumstances but it is likely that some other countries may face similar challenges. Three major sorts of challenges have arisen in New Zealand in the last decade: direct challenges to the principles of official statistics (first release and survey respondent confidentiality): distinguishing between business and personal information (for the self-employed with no employees; and when personal opinions are requested in business surveys) and the ethics of over-sampling, or requesting particular information, from some sections of the population (for example, Maori). Specific examples, together with the New Zealand response, are given for each of these challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]