Mr Key will reveal Government's plan for deploying troops to Iraq to help combat the Islamic State this afternoon.
Before a caucus meeting this morning, he told reporters that if military trainers were sent to the Middle East, "you would expect us to provide intelligence to keep our people safe".
The Government Communications and Security Bureau (GCSB) and the Security Intelligence Service (SIS) have previously played a support role for New Zealand troops in Afghanistan.
Mr Key said: "There's no question that in Afghanistan some of that intelligence was delivered by New Zealand services because we believed that was in our best interests.
"It may or may not be the case in Iraq on the basis that we send trainers there."
He said New Zealand spies would not help to identify targets for coalition airstrikes, but "that position could always change".
As part of the Five Eyes agreement, New Zealand provided broad intelligence into "a big melting pot of information" which was shared with the US, Canada, Britain, and Australia.
"But if you're talking about gathering information, packaging it up and saying 'that's the target you might want to focus on', that's not happening," Mr Key said.
Labour Party leader Andrew Little said if intelligence agencies were called on to assist with airstrikes, it would go against Mr Key's assurance that any deployment would be "behind the wire" in a training capacity.
Mr Little said the airstrikes by coalition forces had been successful in forcing back Islamic State troops. But if New Zealand was to assist with identifying targets, its troops would have to leave their military base to gather intelligence.
He reiterated that Labour was opposed to sending New Zealand troops in any role to fight in a conflict which was "unwinnable".
Labour's foreign affairs spokesman David Shearer said providing intelligence for drone strikes would be an escalation of the training role outlined by Government.
The Prime Minister was also asked this morning whether Government had received any direct or indirect communication from the Islamic State.
Mr Key said: "Not direct communication that I've been made aware of. I can't absolutely say within the whole system."
Isaac Davison of the New Zealand Herald
