Many working holiday visa holders work in orchards during their stay in New Zealand. Photo: RNZ / Ruth Kuo
Immigration New Zealand has warned overseas applicants to refrain from using automated scripts to secure a working holiday visa to New Zealand.
Applications for the China Working Holiday Visa open on 2 July and the 1000-visa quota is typically reached within a matter of hours after opening each year.
Various third-party online services have become available to help secure a spot in the application queue for a fee in recent years, but Immigration New Zealand prohibits automated tools to be used in the process.
The agency said it could identify applications submitted with the assistance of automated tools, and reserved the right to suspend or terminate an applicant's access.
What's more, Immigration New Zealand said anyone found to have accessed the online application portal unlawfully could face prosecution.
A search on online shopping platform Taobao showed dozens of merchants offering services that appeared to use automated tools, with prices ranging from around 7000 yuan to 20,000 yuan (about $1680-$4870).
A Google search also turned up services offering auto-fill software programmes.
Many vendors promised to refund customers if they failed to secure a spot.
"We specialise in providing New Zealand working holiday booking services," one vendor said in a promotional post written in simplified Chinese. "We use our experience and advanced technology to significantly increase your chances of getting a [working holiday] visa, without having to go through the anxiety of refreshing the page or the pain of missing out."
Another vendor offered "enhanced technical strength" to improve an applicant's chances of success.
"We have studied the New Zealand [working holiday visa] quota system thoroughly," the vendor wrote in simplified Chinese. "To deal with this year's event, we have enhanced our technical strength and upgraded both our software and hardware. We are very confident that we can help you get a spot this year."
However, Immigration New Zealand expressly forbade any "unauthorised access" to the Working Holiday Scheme Online.
The agency investigated all instances of unauthorised access to the service, it said.
"For the avoidance of doubt, the use of automated tools (including the use of scripts, web-crawlers, robots or screen-scrapers) to access, attempt access or in any way applied to the Working Holiday Online Services is unauthorised," it said.
The agency also said it had measures in place to identify unauthorised access and reserved the right to take action if needed.
"INZ reserves the right to suspend, restrict or terminate your access to this system at any time without notice at our discretion if we have reasonable grounds to believe you have breached any of the terms of use," the website said.
"Instances of unlawful access and/or use may also be liable for prosecution."
Photo: 123RF
Jeannie Melville, deputy chief operating officer at Immigration New Zealand, reminded people to prepare their applications carefully.
"The category is popular each year, and we typically see the quota filled within the first day of applications opening," Melville said.
"Applications are accepted on a first-in, first-serve basis. If individuals wish to apply, we advise to apply on 2 July when applications will open to avoid missing out."
People could explore other visa options on Immigration New Zealand's website in case they missed out on a working holiday visa spot, Melville said.
Melville said the agency was aware that automated scripts by third-party services or intermediaries had been used in the past.
"These intermediaries attempt to secure applications for paying customers by disrupting access to some working holiday schemes using automated processes," she said.
"This generates high volumes of transactions to maximise their chances of securing these applications for their customers.
"We actively monitor our systems for such activity, and when we detect such attempts, we block those responsible."
Cybersecurity consultant Daniel Ayers said the scenario reminded him of people using bots to book spots for Managed Isolation and Quarantine facilities during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The high volume of transactions that immigration New Zealand was targeting was essentially a denial-of-service attack, which overloaded a service by sending too many requests and causing it to fall over, he said.
"There's a variation on that technique where you do that in a way that doesn't completely kill the service, but you make it easier for you to access it versus other people," Ayers said, suggesting that this could be what some third-party services in China were using.
Carrying out a denial-of-service attack is illegal under the Crimes Act, he said.
However, it could be difficult to identify who is responsible, he said.
Moreover, the Crimes Act only applied to people in New Zealand, which made the investigation and prosecution of such attacks challenging, he said.
"You can't stop people from launching attacks. There are technical things that can be done to reduce the degree to which the website is vulnerable to those attacks," Ayers said.
"Denial-of-service attacks are something that you need to plan for. ... It's just a risk of being on the internet."
