The GCSB's website boldly promises "Mastery of Cyberspace for the security of new Zealand". But apparently their l33t cyber-mastery skillz do not extend to putting the correct email address on their website (and in fact they do not seem to understand the difference between an email address and a "website". Yeah, we can have faith in these guys. Not).
Micky Savage isn't the only person who has suffered this problem. I was contacted today by another, and it seems it is widespread. According to GCSB, it was the result of a website update, and they have asked for it to be corrected as a priority. We'll see how that works out.
Meanwhile, as for GCSB's contention that their fuckup means they can respond later to the lost OIA requests, this is incorrect. According to the Electronic Transactions Act 2002:
An electronic communication is taken to be received... in the case of an addressee who has designated an information system for the purpose of receiving electronic communications, at the time the electronic communication enters that information system
And the Ombudsman has applied this in the past to agencies and Ministers who ignore their emails (they also apply it to Twitter and Facebook accounts). In this case, GCSB has designated an email address. That email address goes nowhere, but they are still responsible for requests sent to it, and the working day count starts the day after the request is received. Any attempt to evade that duty is a violation of the law, and they need to be held accountable for it.
