2 Search and Surveillance Powers damage to the economy or to an industry that is significant to New Zealand’s economy, compliance with international obligations, the protection of animals from serious or immediate injury or exploitation, and the prevention of serious damage to the environment. 19 This chapter is concerned with how search powers should be exercised. in particular, it outlines an enforcement officer’s powers and obligations that arise during the search. as with chapter 4, the recommendations made in this chapter generally reflect current law and best practice and clarify some areas that are presently uncertain. 20 i mportant areas where existing law requires clarification include the assistance available to an enforcement officer executing a search power, such as the role and powers of people assisting an enforcement officer at a search scene, and the authority of an enforcement officer to remove an item from the scene for examination or processing elsewhere when it is not practicable to determine whether it should be seized at the place searched. 21 New provisions are proposed to empower an enforcement officer to secure a crime scene while a warrant is being obtained and to give reasonable directions to people at the scene to enable a search to be carried out effectively. it is also proposed that enforcement officers exercising a statutory power to search premises should be able to detain people present in order to determine whether anyone is connected with the object of the search. 22 The obligations of an enforcement officer to provide information to a person affected by the exercise of a search power immediately before and in the course of the search are enlarged. These include a requirement to provide an inventory of any property removed, with the back of the inventory form containing information about the rights of the person concerned. Where the occupier of a place is not present when a search power is exercised, the enforcement officer should be required to leave or provide notice that the search has taken place. a judge may postpone or dispense with that requirement where giving notice would prejudice ongoing or subsequent investigations or endanger the safety of any person. 23 Enforcement agencies need effective powers to access and search devices that store intangible evidential material and to retrieve or copy that material. Though some statutes deal with aspects of an enforcement officer’s access to intangible data, overall the statutory framework has not kept pace with changes in technology. as a result there are large gaps in the law. The recommendations made in this chapter do not propose the enactment of a separate code to deal with these issues; rather they are based on the premise that the search powers and procedures relating to tangible items should generally apply to intangible evidential material with such modifications that may be necessary. 24 For example, the power to copy material should provide for the forensic copying (cloning) of the hard drive of a storage device containing the information, and the use of force provisions should be adapted to provide for access to data held in a storage device. a specific provision is proposed to ensure that once the examination of a forensic copy of data made under the authority of a search power is completed, the copy should be destroyed unless there is a proper basis for its retention. Recommendations are also made to extend the application of the present statutory Chapter 6 –   exeCuting searCh powers Chapter 7 –   Computer searChes