Frances Kuo protests outside Rydges Hotel as The New Zealand Institute of Intelligence Professionals meet inside.

Despite calls from participants for more openness around our national security, an intelligence summit held in Wellington on Wednesday was closed to outsiders, including news media.

The New Zealand Institute of Intelligence Professionals met today at Rydges Hotel in central Wellington for its annual conference with high-ranking government intelligence officials, cyber-security companies and experts discussing issues of public trust, confidence, privacy and intelligence.

Privacy commissioner John Edwards, who was speaking at the conference, said during the lunchbreak that intelligence and security was changing rapidly "and irrevocably" in the wake of US whistleblower Edward Snowden's ongoing revelations about global spy networks..

SUPPLIED Pipitea House in Thorndon, Wellington, home to the Government Security Communications Bureau (GCSB).

Illegal spying and mass whistleblowing had spawned a "heightened sense of anxiety" in the public around the actions of government spying agencies such as the Security Intelligence Service (SIS) Government Security Communications Bureau (GCSB), which illegally intercepted a communication relating to entrepeneur Kim Dotcom.

Edwards said agencies needed to work with as much transparency as an operation allowed.

New Zealand had held on to greater levels of secrecy beyond the needs of what other countries and agencies required - a mindset that needed to change, he said.

"I think we've moved on from that Cold War, old soldiers thing but institutional cultures take a long time to shift...in New Zealand we only ever see the activities of these agencies when they're found to be breaking the law, so we get quite a skewed view."

Eroding the public's confidence were cases like that of Ahmed Zaoui who was jailed after the SIS linked him to a terrorist group and declared him a security threat.

Edwards said cases like Zaoui's showed agencies were over-reaching and "maybe giving the false impression that there is not sufficient respect for the law."

Former police commissioner Howard Broad - who as the deputy chief executive of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet is now the country's security and intelligence tsar - also spoke on the need for more openness around spying.

Police minister Michael Woodhouse was billed to be keynote speaker on Wednesday night.

Lobby group Stop the Spies set up a small protest to coincide with the minister's arrival at 5.30pm.

Spokeswoman Valerie Morse said agencies like the SIS and GCSB had no legitimate purpose in New Zealand.

"They are not needed," she said.

"Any functions that may be considered essential could be taken up by other Government agencies."

Spying agencies had operated for so long in the shadows and desperately wanted to return to that murky world but they couldn't, Morse said.

"The mass spying on New Zealand citizens, whistleblowing and being seen as pawns in the global spying network has eroded public trust."

Stop the Spies claims the global spying network operated by the "Five Eyes" of the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand and Canada had been involved in human rights abuses and violated international law.

*Read privacy commissioner John Edwards' spying and security speech "Privacy versus Security: The False Dichotomy and the Myth of Balance" here.