This site is owned and operated by New Plymouth District Council using software licensed from Social Pinpoint.
For details on how New Plymouth District Council collects and protects your personal information, refer to their Privacy Policy below. For details of how Social Pinpoint may access personal information, please refer to Social Pinpoint’s Privacy Policy.
Privacy Statement for Have Your Say NPDC
The New Plymouth District Council (collectively referred to as “NPDC”, “we”, “our” or “us”) is committed to protecting the privacy of your personal information.
This privacy statement tells you about our collection and the use of your personal information, through your use of the Have Your Say NPDC website (“Have Your Say NPDC”).
Have Your Say NPDC is owned and operated by NPDC using software licensed from Social Pinpoint Pty Limited (“Social Pinpoint”). For details of how Social Pinpoint may access personal information, please refer to Social Pinpoint’s Privacy Policy available at www.the-hive.com.au/privacy-policy.
We are subject to the Privacy Act 2020 (the “Privacy Act”) and the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987 (“LGOIMA”), which govern how personal information is collected, used, stored, and accessed. This privacy statement has been prepared in accordance with our obligations and your rights under the Privacy Act and the LGOIMA.
By using Have Your Say NPDC and providing us with your personal information, you consent to our use of your personal information in accordance with this privacy statement (as amended from time to time).
For personal information collected through any of our other platforms, please refer to NPDC’s general privacy statement available at NPDC Privacy Statement.
Why do we request personal information?
New Plymouth District Council is requesting to collect your personal information for several reasons:
- to enable us to respond to you (if necessary)
- to enable us to include you in any future events on any specific topics that you request.
- to provide us with the demographic information to determine the extent to which the feedback collected is representative of the community.
- to allow us to gather participation data (such as numbers interacting from specified areas) with specific topics to better inform our feedback to Council.
- to understand the reach and representation achieved and address any gaps to ensure diverse representational engagement across the NPDC community.
- to ensure that any one participant or spammers and trolls are not unduly influencing the feedback results.
What personal information do we collect?
Registering with Have Your Say
When you register for Have Your Say NPDC or sign into an existing account, the personal information we :
- username (this will be published on the site alongside any public comments you make so you are welcome to use a pseudonym)
The optional information we encourage you to provide includes:
- age (if you are under the age of 18 you must seek parental guidance before registering for and using our online engagement tool)
Have Your Say Feedback
We collect comments, votes, posts, and selections you contribute when interacting with the feedback mechanisms provided through Have Your Say NPDC which may include:
- formal submission processes
This information is analysed to inform Council’s decision makers in the creation of better projects, plans and policies.
Can you remain anonymous or withhold personal information?
Yes. You can access and Have Your Say in select Have Your Say NPDC engagements anonymously, without disclosing any personal information. Some identified projects may require you to register and establish an account to Have Your Say. As stated above, users may choose to adopt a
Website Information
Have Your Say NPDC is equipped with analytics services which assist us to collect and interpret information. The information collected may include your IP address, web browser, mobile network information, pages viewed, time spent on pages or in apps, links clicked and conversion information. This information is aggregated, and all users are anonymous and not personally identifiable.
This statistical information will be viewable by website administrators and Social Pinpoint. This information may be used by us to analyse and track data, determine the popularity of certain content, and better understand online activity.
Email notifications
If you subscribe to receive notifications about upcoming projects or other engagement activities, the email address you provided will be used by us to send you that information. You can unsubscribe from these notifications at any time.
Sharing of your personal information
Access to your personal information is confined to authorised users only, which includes employees of NPDC on a need-to-know basis, our website administrators, and Social Pinpoint.
NPDC respects the privacy of your information and will take all reasonable measures to prevent unauthorised access to, or unlawful disclosure of, your personal information.
Third Parties
We may also disclose personal information to third parties, and you consent to us disclosing your personal information, for the following purposes:
The following Email Direct Marketing is used in conjunction with New Plymouth District Council to assist with communicating, reviewing, interpreting, and gaining insights into feedback submitted via Have Your Say NPDC:
- Campaign Monitor Australia 1 Pty Limited ABN 45604705473
How long do we hold personal information?
The length of time we keep your personal information depends on what it is and whether we have an ongoing need to retain it. We may retain all personal information that we collect (on both our active systems and our archives systems) for as long as administratively necessary, in accordance with NPDC’s information retention and disposal authority.
To determine the appropriate retention period of your information, we consider the nature, sensitivity, appropriate legal obligations, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised disclosure, the purposes for which we process your information, and whether these purposes can be achieved through alternative means.
The Public Records Act 2005 (Public Records Act) requires us to keep “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 regional planning instruments.
Publicly available information
When you sign up to and use Have Your Say NPDC, some of the information you provide will be publicly available.
Information that is available to the public is limited to your username and any comments you leave under that username in the forums or other feedback tools published to Have Your Say NPDC. As above, you can use an anonymous username if you do not want your full name attached to your comments.
Feedback (including overall results of formal submissions, polls, and
You may use Have Your Say NPDC to make submissions to NPDC the Local Government Act 2002 long-term plans). By taking part in the public submission process, all submissions (including your name, address and contact details) are provided to Council officers and elected members for the purpose of analysing feedback. Your personal information will also be used for the administration of the engagement and decision-making process. Submissions (with individuals names only) will be available online. If requested, submitter details may be released under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987. If there are good reasons why your details and/or submission should be kept confidential, please contact our Privacy Officer on 06 759 6060 or through enquiries@npdc.govt.nz.
Application Programming Interface
We provide an application programming interface (‘API’) to enable third party applications to interface with Have Your Say NPDC.
If you choose to allow the application to connect to your Facebook account to create an account for Have Your Say NPDC, then that application will be able to access information that you can see when you are logged in to your Facebook account. You should only allow applications you trust to access your account. If you set up a Have Your Say NPDC account using an API with a third-party social media platform, you consent to us obtaining and using your information from such platform.
NPDC may use third party applications to analyse the comments, votes, posts, and selections you contribute to better understand the themes and trends in the feedback received. This information will be provided anonymously i.e., personal details such as responses to name and email address categories are not provided to the third-party application. The analysis will assist with reporting themes and trends back to participants, NPDC staff and councillors from the aggregated responses.
Storage of personal information
Information collected through Have Your Say NPDC will be held by Social Pinpoint in accordance with its privacy policy. Social Pinpoint is an offshore service provider based in Australia so personal information collected will be stored in their server located in Sydney, Australia. The information will also be downloaded on NPDC servers with privacy protections in place. We comply with the requirements of the Privacy Act in relation to the transfer of personal information offshore.
Access and Correction of Personal Information
We will provide you with access to your personal information unless we are required or authorised to refuse such access by law.
If you would like to access, update, correct, or delete the personal information that the NPDC is holding about you, you are welcome to make these requests by emailing NPDC at enquiries@npdc.govt.nz Please quote your name and address and, if possible, provide brief details of what information you want a copy of (this helps us to locate more readily your information).
When you are a registered user, you will have the ability to correct your personal information at your discretion through the ‘edit profile’ function. You may also choose to contact us to request a change or correction of your personal information. We will take all necessary steps to accommodate your request unless we are required or authorised to refuse that request by law.
Links to external websites
Have Your Say NPDC may contain links to other websites. Those links are provided for convenience only and may not be current or be maintained. NPDC is not responsible for the content, accuracy or privacy practices associated with the linked websites.
Any links to other websites should not be construed as any endorsement, approval, recommendation, or preference by NPDC of the owners or operators of those websites, or of any information, graphics, materials, products, or services referred to on those websites.
Changes to this privacy statement
We reserve the right to amend this privacy statement from time to time by posting an updated privacy statement here on this website. We will collect, use, hold and disclose your personal information in accordance with our most recently updated version of the privacy statement. We recommend that you regularly review this privacy statement when you visit this website.
If you do not agree with any aspect of the updated privacy policy, you must promptly notify us using the contact details set out below.
Who can you contact?
If you have any questions, queries, or complaints about the handling of your personal information, please contact our Privacy Officer in the first instance using the contact details set out below and we will do our best to assist.
email: enquiries@npdc.govt.nz
Or
post:
NPDC Privacy Officer
Private Bag 2025, 84 Liardet Street,
New Plymouth 4340,
Aotearoa New Zealand
Phone: 06 759 6060
If you’re not satisfied with how we’ve handled your request, you have the right to make a complaint to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner.
You can make a complaint to the Privacy Commissioner online at: https://www.privacy.org.nz
Or
Office of the Privacy Commissioner PO Box 10094 Wellington 6143
You can also call the Privacy Commissioner’s office on 0800 803 909.
