Chris Hipkins says police are looking into revelations officers falsely recorded cars associated with a trio of women who travelled to Northland during last year's COVID-19 lockdown as stolen.
It comes after Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson said the report was "clearly" concerning.
On Tuesday, the NZ Herald revealed officers reported vehicles linked with the trio as stolen so they could get into Automatic Number Plate Recognition systems.
"I'm not aware of that story at all," Robertson told AM.
"Obviously, I recall the incident at the time and, certainly, the police were involved… in terms of trying to locate the people concerned but, no, I didn't have any update on that.
"Quite clearly I'd be concerned about that, wouldn't I? And the police have many ways that they're able to track people and follow people and get information, and so we always expect the police to act within the law."
Chris Hipkins, the current Police Minister and who was COVID-19 Response Minister at the time, told reporters he'd spoken with the police about the matter on Tuesday.
"They're obviously looking into exactly what's happened here," said Hipkins.
"The advice that I've had, as of this morning, the information they were seeking... they could have used the platform for that but they may not have used the appropriate avenue to do that.
"I'll let the police find out exactly what's happened before passing judgement on that."
Newshub has contacted the police for a response to the report.
A police spokesperson told Newshub a vehicle shouldn't be entered into its database as stolen unless circumstances unless circumstances indicated it was taken unlawfully.
"Police staff are being reminded of the policy and work will also begin on a review of training in the use of ANPR (automatic number plate recognition). Police is also looking to conduct an audit to confirm that the platform - a highly valuable investigative tool - is being used appropriately," the spokesperson said.
"In the matter of Operation Hiking, police acted under the unique order of the Medical Officer of Health to locate people who were considered to be a health risk at a time the Tāmaki Makaurau-Northland boundaries were in operation.
"It would have been preferable for the vehicles registration number to entered as 'sought' rather than 'stolen' in NIA (national intelligence application) which would have still generated an alert on any police-owned ANPR camera.
"The vehicle's registration number could have been supplied individually... under the policy as information indicated a serious risk to public health existed.
"Police were able to lawfully locate this vehicle and, while well intended, this was not the appropriate way to generate an automatic alert which, in the end, had the same outcome."
Details were revealed earlier this month about the trio of women who travelled to Northland during the lockdown. At the time, the Government said the documents were forged but, in fact, they were granted an exemption "in error".
That mistake led to an 11-day, $23 million lockdown for Northland and the women were publicly scrutinised.
Hipkins stood by Government decisions made at the time and refused to apologise.
