New Zealanders would have lost their right to enter the United States without a visa if the Government had refused to sign a new international crime-fighting deal.

Under the deal, information such as fingerprints will be shared with US authorities including the FBI.

The Agreement on Enhancing Co-operation in Preventing and Combating Crime will increase information sharing between the two countries.

It will allow US law-enforcement agencies - including the Department of Homeland Security - to access information on New Zealanders.

But Green Party co-leader Dr Russel Norman said revelations about mass surveillance by the US Government showed they can't be trusted with the private information of New Zealanders.

The agreement will allow enforcement, immigration and border authorities to share information to prevent, detect and investigate crimes with a penalty of one year or more imprisonment.

Justice Minister Judith Collins said the agreement supported New Zealand's security against cross-border criminal activities, particularly organised crime and terrorism.

"Increasingly, criminal activity spans international borders, requiring close co-operation between law enforcement and immigration agencies around the world," she said.

The deal was not much different to measures already in place. Co-operation between the two countries had enhanced New Zealand's security, protecting it against transnational crime such as sexual abuse and drug smuggling, she said.

Under the agreement, authorities from the two countries can access each other's fingerprint databases and further information can be shared if there is a match.

Information which can be provided to authorities if fingerprints match includes names, alibis, addresses, names of associates and previous convictions - provided it was permitted under domestic legislation.

Information on DNA would also be able to be shared in the future if technology allows it.

The agreement applies to cases including criminal investigations, when it can help prevent serious threats to public security and in visa applications.

The agreement has privacy and data security protection measures, Collins said.

Information sharing was essential in the fight against global crime with New Zealand one of 36 countries to sign such agreements with the US as part of the its visa-waiver programme.

New Zealand passport holders do not need a visa to visit the US for tourism purposes, with about 130,000 New Zealand residents visiting in the past year.

Collins said if New Zealand had not agreed to the deal, New Zealanders would have lost that right.

The US had said "some years ago" they wanted all 36 countries who had the deal to sign up to such agreements.

However, Norman said he was concerned about the handing over of such information as the US Government could not be trusted not to misuse it.

The agreement "presumably" meant the US could take the data of New Zealanders and "match them with the rest of their giant database and all our communications so that analysts and private contractors working with the [US intelligence organisation] NSA [National Security Agency] can sit at their desks and pull up all of your private details, your DNA, your fingerprints and all of your private communications", he said.

While people had once been happy with such information sharing on the understanding it was in their best interest, that trust had been eroded, he said.

"We now know that the US Government isn't using that information properly. They're engaged in mass surveillance, and data trawling, often illegally, and they'll be matching the data that the New Zealand Government is providing them with all of that illegally obtained data." There was "no question that the US Government can't be trusted to protect and look after data and not to engage in mass surveillance, that's exactly what the Snowden revelations have revealed to all of us," he said.

Collins said Norman was "mad as a snake".

The agreement will now be considered by Parliament's foreign affairs, defence and trade committee. Legislation is required to incorporate the treaty obligations into domestic law.

It is not known when the deal will be implemented.