Privacy

Your privacy is important to the Clutha District Council. Our Privacy Policy sets out how and why we collect and store your personal information, what we will use it for and who we can share it with.

This Privacy Policy has been prepared in accordance with our obligations and your rights under the Privacy Act. We take these obligations and the Privacy Act 2020 privacy principles seriously.

Certain products and services we provide may be subject to additional terms and conditions and privacy policies. Therefore, we recommend that you carefully read the terms and conditions and any specific privacy policy that apply to the products and services we offer.

At times we may amend the policy in response to changes in our services or privacy best practice.

Collection and use of personal information

Wherever possible your personal information will be collected from you, or anyone you authorise to provide us with your personal information.

We may collect personal information when you, or someone acting on your behalf, provides it to us directly. For example, when you:

• Communicate with us in person, by letter, phone or electronically
• Complete and submit forms or applications for consents, licences, approvals, permits, funding, or other authorisations
• Use or register for any of our services or facilities, such as our online services and apps, including libraries, online payment services, newsletters, or service updates
• Submit a written submission, request or other feedback
• Follow or post comments in response to our social media or other online communications
• Apply for employment with us
• Appear in any images and audio from Closed Circuit Television.

Please be aware that this is an indicative list of examples only.

We may keep a record of any information you receive from us.

We may monitor and record your phone calls with us for quality control or staff training purposes. If your call is to be monitored and recorded, we will let you know at the time of the call.

We may collect personal information about you from other organisations, entities or persons to fulfil a necessary activity. These might include:

• Our related organisations, including Council contractors
• Our suppliers, which include organisations such as:
  • Land Information New Zealand
  • QV
  • other government departments
  • solicitors/conveyancers
  • the New Zealand Police
  • credit reporting agencies and other organisations, entities and persons where you have expressly authorised us to request and obtain your information from them or you have authorised them to provide your information to us.

When you visit or return to one of our websites, we may use technology solutions such as cookies to provide you with better access to tailored information and services. A cookie is a small data file that a website or app sends to your device, which may be stored for later retrieval by the website or app. Some cookies we use last only for the duration of your website or app session and expire when you close your browser or exit the app. Other cookies are used to remember you when you return.

We use Google Analytics to further understand how some of our services may be improved. These services rely on the use of cookies. For details on what information is collected via the use of cookies and how it is stored and used, see Google’s privacy policy.

We may use non-personalised statistics to monitor site traffic, analyse trends, gather demographic information, improve services and user experience. These are anonymised and/or amalgamated statistics and do not include personal information.

We may collect video footage through various means, including:

• Public sessions of the Council meetings may be broadcast live online and then made available on our website. Signage will clearly state the meeting is being filmed before you enter the meeting room. Filming may include shots of the public in the background and anyone speaking in a public session.

How Clutha District Council uses your information

The personal information we collect from you or someone acting on your behalf may be used for any of the following purposes:

• To provide you with services or facilities – including those you have requested and those our contractors provide to you
• To confirm your identity. This is to ensure we provide you with appropriate and relevant services and information and to avoid inappropriate release or use of your information
• To process any consent, licence, approval, permit or other authorisation for which you have applied
• To process your application to use or register for any of our services or facilities, including our online services. To process payments received or made by Clutha District Council
• To respond to your correspondence, requests, enquiries, feedback or for customer service related activities
• To update any information that we currently hold about or in connection with you in our existing records, database or systems
• To assist us in analysing, and further developing and improving our products and services
• To comply with relevant laws and regulations
• For any specific purpose that we notify you of at the time when your personal information is collected
• To provide you with information about Clutha District Council news, events, services or facilities we think may interest you
• For general administrative and business purposes and to carry out activities connected with the running of our business or operations such as personnel training or testing and maintenance of computer and other systems
• For any other purposes that you authorise.

Sharing your information

Information will only be shared with your consent or where there is a statutory requirement to share it.

We may disclose personal information about you to:

• Any person engaged by the Clutha District Council to provide products or services on our behalf, where your personal information is necessary for the provision of those products or services
• Our related organisations, in order to assist with the functions and services they provide
• A third party, if we are required to do so under laws or regulations, or in the course of legal proceedings or other investigations.
• Any person we may notify you of at the time we collect your information and any person you authorise us to disclose your personal information to
• Some information we hold about or in relation to you may be made available to the public, such as:
  • any submission you make in relation to bylaws, annual plans and long term plans, district plans, or draft or proposed strategies and policies. Submissions are made available in full (including the submitter’s name and organisation) on our website and at our main office. Contact details are withheld.
  • video footage of Council meetings that are intended for broadcast or to be otherwise available for public viewing.

Storing personal information

We have strict security procedures covering the storage of your information in order to prevent unauthorised access and to comply with the terms of the Privacy Act 2020.

We do not sell, trade or rent your personal information to others. All data is stored behind corporate firewalls and only specific employees can access your personal data. Clutha District Council has in place measures to protect against the loss, misuse and alteration of your personal information. Our servers are protected by reasonable physical and electronic security measures.

This means that sometimes we may ask you for proof of identity or for other personal information before we can process your enquiry further.

How long do we keep personal information?

We may retain personal information we collect (for as long as required by law or for administrative purposes. This is in accordance with our information retention and disposal schedule or applicable legal requirements.

The Public Records Act 2005 requires us to retain protected records indefinitely. In some circumstances, your personal information may be included within a protected record, including submissions you make in relation to bylaws, annual plans, and district or planning instruments.

Not providing information

If you do not provide all the personal information that we request, we may not be able to adequately respond to your correspondence, process applications, provide requested services or facilities , process payments or otherwise deal with any requests or enquiries you have submitted.

In some circumstances, you are legally obligated to provide information and the Clutha District Council is legally required to ask for it.

Security and accuracy

We have reasonable measures in place to keep your information safe and secure, and protected against loss, other misuse, and unauthorised access, use, modification, or disclosure.

We will also undertake reasonable measures to ensure personal information is accurate, current and relevant.

Website and cookies

You may browse and access information on our Clutha District Council’s websites without providing personal information. This website stores cookies on your computer. These collect information about how you interact with our website and allow us to remember you. We use this information to improve and customise your browsing experience, and for analytics and metrics about our visitors.

This website does not use cookies to collect or store personal information such as financial transaction or bank details.

Security of web-based information

A secure method using SSL (secure socket layer) encryption is used for online payments via this website.

Links to third parties

The website may contain links to other websites operated by third parties. We take no responsibility for the privacy practices of third parties. To determine the privacy policy that each third party adheres to you should consult each linked website.

Website data

This website may record information about user behaviour. This cannot be used to identify individuals or any personal information. This will be used to improve your website experience and will not include any information that identifies you.

Accessing and editing your information

You can ask us to confirm whether we hold any personal information about you and you may request access to your personal information by emailing help.desk@cluthadc.govt.nz or by using the Privacy Commissioner’s 'About Me' tool.

Once we have verified your identity, we will provide you with confirmation and access, unless we believe we can withhold the information under the Privacy Act.

You can ask us to correct the personal information we hold by emailing help.desk@cluthadc.govt.nz. If we agree that your personal information needs to be corrected, we will do so and provide you with an amended record, if requested.

Your right to access and correct any personal information we hold is subject to the Privacy Act.

Official information act and LGOIMA Requests

All enquiries about or formal requests for information made under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987 or the Privacy Act 2020 should be in writing to help.desk@cluthadc.govt.nz or information requests, Clutha District Council, 1 Rosebank Terrace, Rosebank, Balclutha 9230.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

At our discretion, from time to time, we may change parts of our Privacy Policy. All changes will be posted on this page, so you are always aware of how we are handling your personal information. If you have any further questions relating to this policy, please contact us on help.desk@cluthadc.govt.nz or call 0800 801 350.

General data protection rules

If you are in the European Union, you have additional rights to your personal data under the European Union General Data Protection Regulation. Under the GDPR you have the right to:

• Notify Clutha District Council that you no longer want us to process or use your personal data. You can do that by contacting us on help.desk@cluthadc.govt.nz or call 0800 801 350.
• You have the right to obtain a copy of any personal data stored and processed by Clutha District Council and you may direct us to transfer your personal data to another controller via csv format.
• You have the right to request that any* of your personal data is deleted from our records. *While we can delete your personal data from current records, data may be stored in archived records and will be deleted in accordance with our document management policies. In some cases, your personal data may continue to be stored in archived records where we are legally required to keep them.
• You may request that we restrict the processing of your personal data. This may affect your ability to use or navigate some of our customer services online.

Further information and complaints

For more information about this Privacy Policy or if you feel we have breached our obligations, or if you have a privacy issue you wish to discuss, please contact our Privacy Officer at:

• help.desk@cluthadc.govt.nz
• Call 0800 801 350.
• Information requests, Clutha District Council, 1 Rosebank Terrace, Rosebank, Balclutha 9230.

If you believe there is a privacy dispute we can’t resolve, you can make a complaint to the Privacy Commissioner at:

• 0800 803 909
• enquiries@privacy.org.nz
• Office of the Privacy Commissioner, PO Box 10094, Wellington 6143