photograph: RNZ
The government plans to use generative AI to draft next year's New Year's awards.
The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (DPMC) said it would assess whether it was worth using AI for this mission after the honors department had used it “substantively”.
A citation is a short summary that combines the winner's nomination with a letter of support that will be published later if the application is successful.
Once drafted by AI, it is checked by a staff member and then sent to the winner for proofreading before publication.
Unsuccessful candidates will not be announced.
An exemption form published under the Official Information Act and approved by the Cabinet Secretary in July gave DPMC permission to use the AI tool called Paerata.
Paerata, secured within the department's Microsoft Azure cloud environment, was developed for internal government use by the Treasury Department and its Central Agency Shared Services (CASS) group and was deployed for use in the government sector in May 2024.
This exemption was necessary because the use of personal information by AI is typically restricted by government policy.
“Citations are currently being drafted from scratch by the Honors Unit. However, these are ideal use cases for Paerata, our Gen-AI tool,” the application form states.
“The ability to consolidate information and present concise summaries saves staff time while ensuring the confidentiality of personal information, thereby maintaining public trust and confidence in our prestigious system.”
According to the form, personal information includes details that may appear on a resume, such as past employment, political affiliations, religious and community activities, as well as contact information for candidates, recommenders and supporters, and some health information.
Paerata does not learn from the information provided and does not maintain any personal information, which is all stored in a “secure honors database with access restricted to certain authorized personnel, except as detailed below.”
It also cannot be shared outside the department.
“Only Paerata users enter their original nominations and letters of support and receive a draft citation. This draft citation is then saved as usual in the Cabinet Office instance in iManage for checking and further steps.”
This year's honors list includes seven new Knights and Ladies, including glaucoma specialist Helen Darnesh Meyer, Chair of the Abuse Care Royal Commission Coral Shaw, Zero founder Rod Drury, Motorsport Hall of Famer Scott Dixon and around 170 other New Zealanders.
DPMC said in a statement that no AI was used to create the citations for the 2026 New Year Honors List, “as the majority of these citations were written prior to internal approval to use Gen-AI for this purpose.”
“Following the substantial use of Gen-AI in the drafting of Honors awards, the Honors Department will evaluate whether this use is worthwhile.”
The review rated the privacy impact of using Paerata for Honor Draft as “low” and the risk of harm as “negligible.”
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