HobsonvillePoint Privacy Policy

1. Our privacy policy

Our privacy policy applies to all personal information collected by Kāinga Ora – Homes and Communities staff, contractors and third parties engaged by us in all of our interactions with you, including on all our:

forms;
websites;
MyKāingaOra secure online services;
applications and Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), including e-File and Business-to-Business (B2B).

Personal information is information about an identifiable individual such as someone's name, contact details, income, or employment details.

This policy has been developed in compliance with relevant legislation, including the Privacy Act 2020. It sets out how we can collect, use, disclose, store and provide access to personal information.

We also take care to meet our obligations under Te Kawa Mataaho – Public Service Commission's Information Gathering Model Standards.

2. What our privacy policy covers

We are committed to making sure that your privacy is protected. This privacy policy tells you:

what personal information we collect;
when we collect personal information;
your obligation to provide information;
the limits on use and disclosure of personal information;
how we keep your personal information secure;
how we ensure that personal information is accurate;
how long we will keep your personal information;
that you can browse our websites without providing personal information;
your rights in relation to the personal information we hold; and
how you can contact us if you have queries or concerns about our privacy policy.

3. What personal information we collect

We collect personal information for lawful purposes connected with our functions.

This includes:

ensuring your tenancy is administered in accordance with the Residential Tenancies Act 1986 and Public and Community Housing Act 1992;
ensuring the financial products we provide are administered in accordance with relevant legislation; and
ensuring our urban development activities are conducted in accordance with the law.

We may get this information from:

you;
your representative or nominated person; or
other parties.

We collect and use personal information to:

verify your identity;
calculate your liabilities or entitlements; or
provide products or services.

The information we collect may relate to administering your tenancy, providing financial products and wrap-around services, or undertaking our urban development activities.

4. When we collect personal information from you

We collect personal information directly from you. We collect it from a number of sources, including when you:

fill in a Kāinga Ora form either online or in hard copy;
register and use a MyKāingaOra account;
contact us by phone or other means; or
subscribe to a newsletter.

At the end of all our forms is a privacy statement that you should read.

Some of our websites or applications allow you to send us personal information by filling in an online form.

Before you submit certain online forms to us, you'll be asked to confirm that the information you have supplied is true and correct. We record this information securely and use it to update our databases. It then becomes part of your Kāinga Ora records.

If you give us your contact details such as email address or mobile phone number, we may also use these to send you:

reminders about tenancy matters; and
information about our products and services.

5. We collect personal information from third parties

As well as getting your personal information directly from you, the law allows us to collect personal information about you from other people and entities in some circumstances.

Sometimes you may not be aware that we have got this information about you. Some of the third parties we collect information from include:

your employer;
banks or financial institutions;
social service providers;
government agencies under memoranda of understanding, or approved information matching or sharing agreements.

The information we collect may be used to:

set up and administer a tenancy;
administer a first home grant;
determine eligibility for Kiwibuild
plan and undertake urban development initiatives;
update our database or records;
give to other government agencies who are entitled to the information under legislation;
contact you, including sending you information electronically.

6. Your obligation to provide information

Meeting your obligations involves giving us accurate information.

We ask you for it so we can:

send you any forms that you'll need;
correctly assess your liabilities and entitlements under relevant legislation.

The legislation we use includes the following:

Residential Tenancies Act 1986;
Unit Titles Act 2010;
Kāinga Ora – Homes and Communities Act 2019;
Housing Act 1955;
Public and Community Housing Management Act 1992;
Social Security Act 2018;
Urban Development Act 2020;
Crown Entities Act 2004;
Property Law Act 2007;
Kiwisaver Act 2006.

You must, by law, give us the information to determine your liabilities or entitlements. Penalties may apply if you do not.

7. Limits on use and disclosure of your personal information

We only use and disclose personal information:

in connection with our lawful functions; and
in accordance with relevant legislation, including the Privacy Act 2020.

This includes using and disclosing information to administer tenancies, first home grant applications, and Kiwibuild applications. In administering your tenancy, we may disclose information to our contractors to enable them to carry out maintenance work.

We may disclose personal information when permitted or required by law. We may disclose information where necessary for the investigation of offences, or where there is a serious threat to health or safety. If our staff are threatened or abused, we may refer this to the Police and disclose relevant information.

We disclose some personal information to other government agencies under law such as approved information sharing agreements or where there is specific legislative authority to share.

This includes:

Ministry of Housing and Urban Development;
Ministry of Social Development;
Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment;
Ministry of Justice;
New Zealand Police;
Department of Corrections;
Oranga Tamariki;
Ministry of Health.

We exchange information for statistical purposes with Statistics New Zealand. We may also use personal information for research purposes, so long as the results will not be published in a form that could reasonably be expected to identify the individual concerned.

We may disclose information about you and your household to other family violence agencies under the Family Violence Act 2018 or to other child welfare and protection agencies under the Oranga Tamariki Act 1989.

We may also disclose your information to third parties to assist us to communicate or market our services to you.

8. How we keep your personal information secure

We respect your privacy and keep your information confidential unless we are lawfully required or allowed to disclose it.

We create and maintain a secure environment for the protection of your personal information and records.

We use reasonable security safeguards to protect information from loss, unauthorised access, use, or disclosure.

We take reasonable steps to minimise the risk of misuse of any unique identifier that we have assigned to you, such as your customer number.

9. How we ensure that personal information is accurate

We make reasonable efforts to ensure that the personal information we collect, use or disclose is accurate.

Whenever you provide information to us, either directly or through your representative, our records will be updated.

You should let us know of any change in your circumstances that might affect your tenancy or your eligibility for any of our products or services. You have the right to ask that we correct any errors or omissions in the information we hold about you.

10. How long we keep your personal information

We'll keep your personal information for as long as necessary to achieve the purpose for which we collected it.

If your personal information becomes part of your Kāinga Ora records, we'll keep the information in accordance with the Public Records Act 2005.

11. You can browse our websites without providing personal information

You can access and browse our websites and applications without disclosing your personal information.

We do not:

automatically record personal information; or
link information that is recorded automatically with personal information about specific individuals.

12. We automatically record some non-personal information

We do not attempt to identify users or their browsing activities unless they choose to give us personal information.

If you visit our website to read or download information, we do record some non-personal information in a log file, for example the:

type of browser or operating system used;
screen resolution of your PC;
date and time our site was accessed;
pages accessed and the documents downloaded;
internet address from which our site was accessed;
search terms used to find content on our website;
last site visited before you accessed any Kāinga Ora website.

13. Our websites use tags

Our websites also use pixel tags or third party tags to monitor behaviour. They are used in combination with cookies and are an often-transparent graphic image, usually no larger than 1 pixel x 1 pixel, that is placed on a website or page.

We use a third party tag from DoubleClick Floodlight to count the number of times users have visited a particular Kāinga Ora webpage after seeing or clicking on one of our advertisements.

14. How we use cookies

Our websites currently use Google Analytics to help analyse how customers use our sites. These analytical tools use "session cookies", which are text files placed on your computer, to collect standard internet log information and visitor behaviour information in an anonymous form.

The information generated by the Google Analytics cookie about your use of the website, including your IP address, is transmitted to and stored by Google outside New Zealand. The tracking data is stored in a database managed by Google. The tracking data is then used by Google to compile statistical reports on website activity for us to evaluate site use. This allows us to:

discover what information is most and least used;
determine technical design specifications; and
help make our sites more useful to visitors.

We will not use the web analytics tools to track or to collect any personally identifiable information of visitors to our websites, such as user IDs and passwords. We will not associate any data gathered from our sites with any personally identifying information from any source as part of our use of the web analytics tools. We will not link, or seek to link, an IP address with the identity of a computer user.

Some of our online services also use session cookies to identify your login session during the time that you are using the service. These cookies expire as soon as you log out or within 15 minutes of inactivity and do not contain any personal information.

15. Disabling/enabling cookies

You can accept or decline cookies by modifying the settings on your browser. You can identify this capability by reviewing the support material supplied by your browser provider. Disabling cookies will not affect your ability to use our websites.

16. Your rights in relation to your personal information

You can request your information from us under the Privacy Act 2020. You can also request other information held by Kāinga Ora under the Official Information Act 1982.

You have the right to request access to the personal information we hold about you as part of your Kāinga Ora records. You can also access some information anytime using MyKāingaOra.

Please call us on 0800 801 601 to request a copy of your personal information. We may require proof of your identity before we provide you with a copy of this information.

We will respond to an information request within 20 working days after we receive it. We will give written notice if we need more time to respond. If we refuse an access request, we will tell you in writing and state the reasons for refusal and outline further steps you can take.

If you consider that some of the information we hold about you is incorrect, you can ask us to change it. We'll assess your request and will either change the relevant information, or explain why we think the information should not be changed. If we do not amend your file, you stillhave the right to have your own statement of correction attached to it and we'll make a note of your change request on your records.

http://kaingaora.govt.nz/contact-us/make-an-official-information-act-oia- request/

17. Complaints

At Kāinga Ora, we're committed to providing excellent service. If you are not satisfied with our service, processes, or a policy decision, you can follow our complaints process.

If you choose to make a complaint to an external body or regulator such as the Ombudsman or Office of the Privacy Commissioner, then we may share your information with them as part of their enquiries.

18. Privacy policy queries and concerns

If you have any queries or concerns about our privacy policy, please contact:

The Privacy Officer
National Kāinga Ora – Homes and Communities
PO Box 2628
Wellington 6140
Email privacyofficer@kaingaora.govt.nz

If you are not satisfied with our response to your concern, you can contact the Privacy Commissioner:

Officer of the Privacy Commissioner
PO Box 10094
Wellington 6143
Phone 0800 803 909
Fax 04 474 7590
Email enquiries@privacy.org.nz

www.privacy.org.nz

The Office of the Ombudsman handles complaints and investigates the administrative conduct of state sector agencies, including in relation to official information requests.