Privacy

Privacy statement

Purpose and scope

The purpose of this privacy statement is to let users of www.consumerprotection.govt.nz know when we collect personal information and what we do with it. We do not use, share or disclose personal information collected or received through this website except as set out in this statement.

Collection, storage and use

You can use this website without disclosing any personal information.

Voluntary disclosure of personal information

You may choose to voluntarily provide personal information through this website (e.g. in the feedback form). This information will be viewable by site administrators, MBIE staff, and third-party contractors who may administrate or work on the site. 

Electronic alerts and newsletters

When you subscribe to one of our alerts or newsletters, the details you provide may be stored in a secure third-party database (eg, Campaign Monitor(external link) ). You will be asked to provide your name and email address so we can send you future electronic newsletters. When you unsubscribe to our alert or newsletter, your details will be deleted from the database.

Holding of information

When you provide personal information, unless otherwise indicated, it will be held by us. It may be stored or accessed on behalf of us by authorised third parties (such as third-party contractors) to the extent that is necessary, for example for them to administrate or work on the site. We will store and keep your personal information secure in accordance with the Privacy Act 2020 and any agents will be subject to our information security and privacy requirements.

Use of personal information

We will generally only use personal information provided to us through this website for the purpose you provided it (eg, to administer, evaluate and improve the site, to improve our services, or to action or respond to the information provided). We may also use personal information provided to us through this website for other reasons permitted under the Privacy Act (eg, with your consent, for a directly related purpose, or where the law permits or requires it).

Disclosure of information

We will generally not share personal information that is provided or collected through this website, unless it is necessary to do so for the purpose for which you gave us the information (eg, to investigate a complaint) or where you consent. We will not otherwise disclose personal information provided or collected through this website unless required or otherwise permitted by law.

Records and retention of personal information

We will only retain personal information as long as it is required for the purposes for which the information may lawfully be used.

Public records

Where any information provided (which may include personal information) to, or through, this site constitutes public records, it will be retained to the extent required by the Public Records Act 2005. 

We may also be required to disclose information under the Official Information Act 1982 or to a Parliamentary Select Committee or Parliament in response to a Parliamentary Question.

Security

Our websites have security measures in place to prevent the loss, misuse and alteration of information under our control. To maintain the cyber security of our systems and information, our systems are subject to ongoing monitoring (including activity logging), analysis and auditing.

We may use information about your use of our websites and other IT systems to prevent unauthorised access or attacks on these systems or to resolve such events. We may use this information even if you are not involved in such activity.

We may use services from one or more third party suppliers to monitor or maintain the cyber security of our systems and information. These third party suppliers will have access to monitoring and logging information as well as information processed on our websites and other IT systems. 

Rights of access and correction

Your rights

You have the right to:

• find out from us whether we hold personal information about you
• access that information; and, if applicable
• request corrections of that information.

If we have a good reason for refusing a request for correction, you are entitled to request that a statement be attached to the information of the correction that was sought but not made.

If you want to check personal information that we hold, please write to:

Privacy Officer
Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment
PO Box 5488
Wellington 6011.

For more information on the privacy laws in New Zealand and contact details for the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, visit the Privacy Commissioner's website(external link) .

Collecting statistical information using cookies via Google Analytics

We may use cookies to gather data about trends in website usage using a tool called Google Analytics. This data will be viewable by website administrators and certain other staff. It may also be shared with other government agencies. This information is aggregated and it does not identify you personally. 

Data collected may include: 

• your IP address
• the search terms you used on this site
• the pages you accessed on this site and the links you clicked on
• the date and time you visited this site
• the referring site (if any) from which you clicked to reach this site
• the device you used to access this site
• your operating system (eg, Windows 10, Mac OS X)
• the type of web browser you used to access this site (eg, Internet Explorer, Google Chrome)
• other things like your screen resolution, the release of your installed Flash version and the language setting of your browser.

Cookies

Browser or ‘web’ cookies are small text files that are sent by a website and stored on your computer's hard drive to collect information about how you browse the website. 

Cookies are used to:

• measure how you use the website so it can be updated and improved based on your needs
• remember the notifications you’ve seen so that we don’t show them to you again

Google Analytics and Facebook

Using Google Analytics means that we can advertise to visitors who have visited certain pages on our site. This could be in the form of an advertisement on the Google search results page, a site in the Google Display Network, or somewhere on Facebook. 

Third-party vendors, including Google and Facebook, use cookies to serve advertisements based on someone’s past visits to the consumerprotection.govt.nz website. 

Any data collected will be used in accordance with our privacy policy as well as the privacy policies of Google and Facebook.

Google Privacy Policy(external link)

Facebook Privacy Policy(external link)

The types of advertising features implemented on the MBIE website may include:

• Remarketing with Google Analytics
• Google Display Network Impression Reporting
• DoubleClick platform integrations
• Google Analytics Demographics and Interests reporting
• Facebook Pixel.

You can opt-out of remarketing by visiting the following pages on Google and Facebook:

Block certain ads(external link) — Google 

Ad preferences(external link) — Facebook

You can read Google’s privacy statement at the Google Safety Center: 

Your privacy(external link) — Google

You can manually disable cookies at any time - check your browser's help information to find out how. Disabling cookies will not affect your ability to use this website.