Mobile phone companies in conjunction with Stats NZ will track people's movements to measure population density.
Stats NZ says a proposed 'Population Density' product by Data Ventures - the commercial arm of Stats NZ - will use data acquired from businesses and organisations such as mobile phone companies.
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'Population Density' is a measurement of population to see the amount of people in a country.
The product is intended to provide more frequent data collections for population counts - potentially down to hourly intervals.
It will be achieved using data sets containing mobile location estimate data, sourced by data providers.
A privacy impact assessment statement from Stats NZ said the data sets will provide snapshots of population density of given places in New Zealand.
"This information will be sold to organisations such a central Government, local Government, Crown entities, local authorities, council operate organisations and Iwi, to allow for more accurate assessments of requirements in areas of the country at certain times of the day, month, season and year.
"These could be used for emergency response management through to tourism peaks and troughs."
Statistics Minister James Shaw was confident people's privacy would be protected, Radio New Zealand reports.
"It is very rigorous and we've had criticism in the past of people saying it's really difficult to get access to that information to be able to use it for research purposes," he said. "Well, that's because it's under lock and key."
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