NZGBC Privacy Policy

Last updated October 2023

The New Zealand Green Building Council ("NZGBC") takes the privacy of personal information seriously and wants you to be familiar with how we collect, use, disclose and protect any personal information you provide to us. This Privacy Policy describes our practices in connection with information that we collect through websites operated by us (from which you are accessing this Privacy Policy), or our social media pages that we control (collectively referred to as the "Services"). By using the Services, you agree to this Privacy Policy.

Please read this Privacy Policy carefully to understand our practices in relation to your personal data. Contact details of NZGBC can be found under the “contact us” section of this Privacy Policy.

THE INFORMATION WE COLLECT

NZGBC collects general and anonymous statistical information when you browse through our websites, software applications and social media pages. This information does not identify you personally but is simply used to enable us to evaluate the performance of these platforms, allow us to assess statistical information on the overall experience of visitors to them and improve our Services. If we combine or connect this general and statistical information with your personal data so that it can directly or indirectly identify you, we treat the combined data as personal data which will be used in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

At certain times we may ask you to provide personal information (being any information about an individual from which that person can be identified) when using the Services, as described below. We may need to collect and use the information because we are either legally required to do so, it is necessary for our legitimate interests or because we need it to provide the requested products or services to you. If you do not provide the information when requested this may result in certain products or services not being available to you.

• Product Purchase and Registration
  When you become a member, purchase a service, register for a rating tool or contact us with an enquiry, we will collect and process the information that you provide. In particular, we may ask you to provide your name, address, phone number and email address.
• Service and Support
  If you make an enquiry, report a problem with our Services or email us through the “Contact Us” link on any of our Services, we may ask you to provide your name, address, phone number, email address so that we can respond to your questions and comments. We may also keep a record of any correspondence between us.
• Transaction Information
  If you purchase a product or service from NZGBC, we may collect details of transactions that are carried out through one of our Services and of the fulfilment of your orders. In addition to your name, email or physical address and contact number, this may include details about payments to and from you.
• Applications & Other Online Activities
  We may collect information through software applications made available by us or when you otherwise use our online Services or platforms. We may collect information typically collected though websites and applications, such as browser and device information, application usage data, information collected though cookies, pixel tags and other technologies, and IP addresses (refer to the section on Cookies below).
• Questionnaires and Surveys
  We occasionally ask visitors to our website and consumers to complete online surveys and opinion polls about their activities and interests to help us improve the usefulness of our Services, products or improve our customer service. We may ask you to provide your name, physical address, email address and/or phone number. Online surveys and polls may be carried out by a third party on our behalf, but they are always voluntary, and you do not need to respond to them.
• Product Review
  If you choose to review a product or service, we may collect the information you provide to us in relation to the product or service review that you submit. We may ask you to provide your name, residential address, email address and details of the product or service you are reviewing. We do not display any personal information you provide in connection with an NZGBC product review, unless you specifically agree. Online reviews are voluntary, and you do not need to provide them.

OFFLINE COLLECTION

We may collect personal information (similar to the personal information outlined above) from you offline. For example, if attend an event we are represented at. In this case, we will collect such personal information as you choose to provide us.

INFORMATION FROM THIRD PARTY SOURCES

We may receive personal information about you from publicly and commercially available sources (like public databases and our joint marketing partners) and other partners or third parties (provided it is permitted by, and in compliance with, applicable laws). We may need to use the information because it is necessary for our legitimate interests or because we need it to provide the requested products or services to you.

USE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

We may use the personal information collected about you for the following purposes:

• To register you as a new member, customer or service provider (for example assessors) and administer and communicate with your services, or our product or Service (including purchases and payments).
• To give you access to online orders, confirm, process and contact you about any orders you may place and deal with refunds or questions you may contact us, or need to be contacted, about.
• For marketing, promotional publicity and promotional purposes by us, including communicate with you about products, services, events, and surveys
• To process, evaluate and respond to your requests, inquiries and applications.
• To operate, evaluate and improve our services (including developing new products and services, assessing the effectiveness of our services, advertising and marketing approaches managing communications and carrying out our various accounting, auditing, billing, reconciliation, and collection activities.
• For data analysis and research purposes.  For example, we may use and share data with other organisations so we or they can gain insights, such as macro-trends in the property market; or we may provide results of a property's assessment against our standards (e.g HomeFit) to property websites or local councils for inclusion on the LIM report for that property.
• To protect against and prevent fraud, unauthorised transactions, claims and other liabilities and manage risk exposure and quality.

We may also use personal information for other additional purposes which we will specify at the time of collection. You may decide not to provide us with certain types of information, but doing so may affect your ability to use some Services.

We may need to collect and use some of the information as mentioned above because we are either legally required to do so, because it is necessary for us to provide you with the requested product or service, because it is necessary for our legitimate interests, or we have acquired your consent.

INFORMATION WE SHARE/DISCLOSE

For the purposes set out above, your personal information may be shared by us with third party organisations that provide product or perform services for us relating to our Services, for example, suppliers, sub-contractors, assessors or government agencies including:

• Assessors, technical experts, and agents who help us provide services and products;
• IT service providers who assist with the running of our IT services (including the Services) which allow us to provide our products and services to you; and
• data and survey service providers who assist us with understanding data held by us and our audience
• conduct market research surveys
• process payments
• are our lawyers, financial advisers and accountants

The categories of personal information disclosed to third party service providers include name, contact information (including contact number and physical and email addresses) and Services related information.

We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal information and to treat it in accordance with the law. Third party service providers are contractually restricted from using or disclosing the information, except as necessary to perform services on our behalf or to comply with legal requirements. We do not sell or disclose (except as stated in this Privacy Policy) your personal information to other organisations without first informing you of such disclosures and, where required, obtaining your prior consent.

We may also disclose information about you where we are required by law to do so.

We may also, with your consent, use and disclose your personal information in other ways.

INFORMATION WE TRANSFER

Your personal information may be stored and/or processed in a country outside New Zealand where third parties who provide services to us are based and/or operate from, and by using the Services you consent to the transfer of information to countries outside of New Zealand which may have data protection rules that are different.

Whenever we transfer your personal data out of New Zealand, we ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by ensuring we only transfer your personal data put in place adequate measures such as standard contractual clauses.

Please contact us using the “Contact Us” section below if you want further information on the specific mechanism used by us when transferring your personal data out of New Zealand.

SOCIAL MEDIA SERVICES

We use social networking services such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to communicate about our work. When you communicate with us using these platforms or services we may collect your personal information, but we only use it to help us to communicate with you. A social networking service may use your personal information for its own purposes. These services have their own privacy policies in place, which we recommend you review.

LINKS TO OTHER SITES

We may provide links to other websites for your convenience and information. These sites may have their own privacy policies in place, which we recommend you review. We are not responsible for the content of linked sites or any use of such sites.

RETENTION OF PERSONALLY IDENTIFIABLE INFORMATION

We will retain personal information for the period necessary to fulfil the purposes outlined in this Privacy Policy unless a longer retention period is required or permitted by law.

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal information, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal information, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use of disclosure of your personal information, the purposes for which we process your personal information and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.

Please contact us using the “Contact Us” section below if you want further information in relation to the retention of your personal information.

THE PROTECTION OF YOUR PERSONALLY IDENTIFIABLE INFORMATION

NZGBC is committed to protecting your privacy. We use a variety of technologies, systems and procedures to protect against unauthorised disclosure, use, alteration or destruction of the personal information you provide on this Service and keep the personal information you provide on this Service secure. Unfortunately, no data transmission or storage system can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. If you have reason to believe that your interaction with us is no longer secure, please immediately notify us in accordance with the “Contact Us” section below.

CHOICES AND ACCESS

NZGBC wants to make sure you have easily actioned choices about how we use and/or disclose your personal information in providing you with our products and services or for marketing purposes. You may opt-out from receiving electronic communications from us.

If you no longer want to receive marketing-related emails or communications from us on a going-forward basis, you may update your email preferences at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link in any email sent to you.

We will try to comply with your request(s) as soon as reasonably practicable. Please note that if you opt-out of receiving marketing-related emails from us, we may still send you important administrative messages that you cannot opt-out from.

HOW YOU CAN ACCESS, CHANGE OR SUPPRESS YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

If you would like to request to access, review, correct, update, suppress/restrict or delete personal information that you have previously provided to us, or if you would like to request that we transfer your personal information to another company (to the extent this right to data portability is provided to you by applicable law), you may contact us at any time using the “Contact Us” section below.

In your request, please make clear what actions you would like us to take in relation to your personal information. For your protection, we may only implement requests with respect to the personal information associated with the particular email address that you use to send us your request, and we may need to contact you to verify your identity before implementing your request. We will try to comply with your request as soon as reasonably practicable.

Please note that we may need to retain certain information for recordkeeping purposes and/or to complete any transactions that you began prior to requesting a change or deletion, but we will advise you of this.

COOKIES POLICY

WHAT IS A COOKIE?

Cookies are harmless text files stored on your computer/device/browser when you visit certain sites/pages.

WHAT DO WE USE THEM FOR?

We use cookies to enhance and improve your website experience and inform us about analytics and metrics. The data is completely anonymous and none of the cookies we use collect about you contact personal information. Accepting cookies allows us to remember you so that if you return to the site, you will not have to refill forms with your information.

UPDATES TO OUR PRIVACY POLICY

NZGBC may, without prior notice to you, review and update this Privacy Policy from time to time to make sure that it remains current and reflects changes in our information practices. We will indicate at the top of the Privacy Policy when it was most recently updated.

CONTACT US

If you have any questions or comments regarding this Privacy Policy, please contact us by email at

If you would prefer to contact us by mail please write to us at:

Legal
New Zealand Green Building Council

Level 2, Tower 1

205 Queen Street

Auckland