PRIVACY POLICY

Introduction

At Verde, we care about your privacy. How we handle your personal information is governed by the Privacy Act 2020 (Privacy Act) and the Information Privacy Principles under that Act.

We want you to understand what this means for you, including the rights that you have over your personal information. Personal information is information about an identifiable individual (a natural person).

This policy sets out how we will collect, use, disclose and protect your personal information.

This policy does not limit or exclude any of your rights under the Act. If you wish to seek further information on the Act, see www.privacy.org.nz.

When does this Privacy Policy apply?

This Verde Group New Zealand Privacy Policy (Policy) describes how we maintain your privacy when handling your personal information. It applies if:

you’re one of our clients;
you use any of our products and services (including our apps); or
you visit our website at verde.co.nz or any of our affiliated websites (our Sites) or any of our social media channels (our Channels).

By providing personal information to us, you authorise us to collect, hold, use and disclose that information in accordance with, and for the purposes specified in this Policy.

In this Policy, the terms we, us, our and Verde refer to Verde Group New Zealand Limited.

What personal information does Verde collect?

The types of personal information we collect about you may include:

your name, postal and street address, email address and telephone number;
your gender, age, profession, role and place of work;
records of our communications with you, including any complaints, requests or queries;
your payment information, such as your credit card or direct debit information and NZBN;
details of the products and services we have provided to you, or that you’ve enquired about, including any additional information necessary to deliver those products and services and respond to your enquiries;
when you access our Sites or Channels – your device ID, device type, geo-location information, computer and connection information, statistics on page views, clicks and interactions, traffic to and from our products, services and Sites, and IP address; and
any other personal information that may be required in order to facilitate your dealings with us.

How do we collect your personal information

We collect personal information about you from:

you, when you provide that personal information to us, including via the website and any related service, through any registration or subscription process, through any contact with us (e.g. telephone call or email), or when you buy or use our services and products
third parties where you have authorised this or the information is publicly available;
use our Sites or Channels;
interact with our client support and sales teams;
complete a form, such as registering for our competitions, training, events and newsletters;
interact with our authorised partners and certified consultant programs;
complete our surveys or product testimonials; or
attend one of our virtual or in-person events.

We may also collect personal information about you:
from our third party joint initiative partners;
that is publicly available, such as from social media;
through tools that measure and track how you use a product or service or our Sites; and
from third parties that provide us with marketing leads.

If possible, we will collect personal information from you directly.

How we use your personal information

We will use your personal information:

to provide services and products to you
to market our services and products to you, including contacting you electronically (e.g. by text or email for this purpose)
to improve the services and products that we provide to you
to respond to communications from you, including a complaint
to conduct research and statistical analysis (on an anonymised basis)
to protect and/or enforce our legal rights and interests, including defending any claim
for any other purpose authorised by you or the Act.

Disclosing your personal information

We will only use or disclose your personal information:

for the purpose for which it was collected (or a purpose that is directly related to the purpose in connection with which the information was obtained);
for any other purpose for which you have authorised; and
otherwise where we are permitted or required to do so by law.

We won’t sell your personal information to third parties without your express consent.

Some of the recipients we may disclose your personal information to include our related companies and third-party service providers who help us to deliver our products and services to you. These third parties provide a variety of services, including client contact, archiving, auditing, professional advisory, banking, data processing, marketing and advertising, data analysis, business intelligence, website, and technology services. Each of these third parties are carefully selected and are only permitted to use your personal information to the extent necessary for them to provide their services to us.

Some of our related companies and third parties to which we disclose personal information may be located overseas, including in Australia, South Africa and the United States. These related companies and third parties may not be subject to New Zealand privacy laws. However, we will take such steps as are reasonable in the circumstances to ensure that those organisations are either subject to privacy laws that, overall, provide comparable safeguards to those under the Privacy Act, or are otherwise required to protect the information in a way that, overall, provides comparable safeguards to those under the Privacy Act. Unless you have authorised us to do so, we will not disclose your personal information to an organisation that may not be required to protect your information with comparable safeguards to those under the Privacy Act.

Protecting your personal information

The security of your personal information is at the heart of our business. We understand that you trust us with very important information, and we’re committed to protecting it.

When you share personal information with us, we usually store it in electronic form. We take reasonable steps to protect the personal information you give us from loss, unauthorised access, use, or disclosure, in line with industry standards. This includes technical and organisational measures, such as arming our web pages with encryption technologies.

Before entering your personal information on our Sites, you can check that the page is encrypted by:

confirming that the page address in the web browser’s toolbar or status bar begins with https://; or
checking that the padlock icon in the web browser’s toolbar or status bar is ‘locked’.

We’re also committed to protecting your information offline. Where we hold your business information and personal information, it’s subject to access controls.

While we take reasonable measures to protect your personal information when it’s in our hands, we can’t guarantee the security of the internet as a whole. If you’re using our services, Sites or Channels online, please ensure you’re doing so in a secure environment. In addition, if you use email to send and receive your personal information, please be aware that the information may be less secure in transit.

Accessing and correcting your personal information

You have the right to access your readily retrievable personal information that we hold and to request a correction to your personal information. Before you exercise this right, we will need evidence to confirm that you are the individual to whom the personal information relates.

In respect of a request for correction, if we think the correction is reasonable and we are reasonably able to change the personal information, we will make the correction. If we do not make the correction, we will take reasonable steps to note the personal information that you requested the correction.

If you want to exercise either of the above rights, email us at marketing@verdegroup.co.nz. Your email should provide evidence of who you are and set out the details of your request (e.g. the personal information, or the correction, that you are requesting).

We may charge you our reasonable costs of providing to you copies of your personal information or correcting that information.

Internet use

While we take reasonable steps to maintain secure internet connections, if you provide us with personal information over the internet, the provision of that information is at your own risk.

If you follow a link on our website to another site, the owner of that site will have its own privacy policy relating to your personal information. We suggest you review that site’s privacy policy before you provide personal information.

Changes to this policy

We may change this policy by uploading a revised policy onto the website. The change will apply from the date that we upload the revised policy.