Legally you are being searched if anyone goes through your bag or your possessions in order to find something, or checks for items on your body or in you clothing. You are not being searched if someone simply looks at you and sees, for example, that you are carrying a knife.

But you are being searched if someone makes you alter your position in some way so that they can get a better look. For example making you open your bag or locker, empty your pockets, or remove clothing so that it is easier to find a stolen walkman, is a search. But seeing the walkman in your bag, which you had opened to get your books out, is not.

The general legal test of what is considered to be a search under the Bill of Rights Act is that something is a search if it involves invasion of the reasonable expectations of privacy of a person.

The issue of school searches has never been decided by a judge in the New Zealand courts so we can't be sure of the answer to this question. But from looking at other areas of law, and at overseas cases, we think there are two situations where it may be lawful for teachers to search you:

1. If you consent;
2. If the school has a good reason for searching you.

If you consent (agree). If you say nothing that usually means you agree to it, so if a teacher asks to search you or your possessions and you don't consent, then you must clearly say so. Sometimes even if you do agree to be searched, it could be an unfair search if you are not mature enough to understand the consequences of agreeing (what may happen).