Privacy Statement

A bit about us and our relationship to you

We own the electricity network throughout the area covering North Otago and parts of South Canterbury and are 100% owned by the Waitaki Power Trust. You can see our power lines along roadsides, and we often have lines, and cables under the road

We treat all relationships with clients and customers, whether they be corporate entities or individuals, as important. We aim to provide a positive service to you in all of our interactions that is built on our core values of promoting regional growth and wellbeing through the provision of innovative and sustainable energy solutions for our customers. If you buy electricity from a retailer, our job is to bring it to your door, safely, reliably, and efficiently.

We will communicate with you in a transparent and appropriate manner.

Our core values are reflected in the way we manage your personal information. We encourage a positive “privacy culture” in which Network Waitaki staff, contractors and third parties are supported and encouraged to adopt sound personal information management practices. We recognise that treating your personal information responsibly, contributes to a positive service experience and to the level of confidence you have in us.  Our staff are encouraged to provide a service that includes 

  • ensuring there are clear purposes for collecting your information;
  • being transparent about our handling of your information;
  • managing risks to your information by limiting the potential for security or data breaches;
  • enabling you to access and correct your information where necessary;
  • ensuring accuracy of your information; and
  • using and disclosing your information lawfully and within our established business purposes.

We are also aware of our obligations under the Privacy Act 2020 and build those expectations into our policy and practice.

Here are some other ways we might interact with you:

  • We may own lines on your land, or nearby. 
  • Your home, business or development may connect to our network. 
  • You may deal with, or work for, our contractors or suppliers.
  • You may work for retailers or other businesses that we provide services to. 
  • You may apply for a job with us.
  • You may contact us with a question or complaint.
  • You may simply visit our website or social media pages.

These services bring us into contact with a significant number of people each month. We endeavour to provide a respectful service to all of these people and at the same time recognise that the information that we gather about you is important to our business and important to you as well. We don’t always have a direct relationship with all of you and some of the personal information that we hold is supplied to us by energy providers.

Network Waitaki is about more than electricity. It’s about you, our customers. You are the reason we do what we do. And we care about your privacy.

Our core purpose is to support you to engage with the energy industry and where we collect or acquire your personal information, we use it solely to enable us to provide these services.    

What sort of personal information do we collect, and how?

We receive information from energy retailers that enables us to provide energy to you through our lines infrastructure. Typically, these details will be contact details and your address. We may also collect potentially sensitive details such as health information about someone in your home that has a medical dependency that may impact on your power usage or your connection requirements.

Where we have a direct relationship with you, we will collect contact details for you and your property and may also collect credit card and bank account numbers in order to manage billing and payment options that you agree have agreed to.

When we directly provide services to you it will usually be obvious what personal information, we collect from you and why.  In providing services to you whether through a direct relationship or on behalf of an energy provider we may also collect information about your property so as keep our staff safe. For example, that you have a dog or a difficult pathway or driveway.

All of the personal information that we collect enables us to deliver a service to you directly or indirectly and we are unlikely to use it for any other purpose unless that further use is permitted by law.

Personal information means any information about an identifiable individual, whether electronic or hard copy. It includes information about our client’s customers, information about our own clients and information about our staff and our contractors who work for us.

Further examples of personal information we may collect include –

about your property 

such as ICP, connection type, access, pets and stock on the property, meter location, plans and maps, property photos, GIS data, fault history, installation inspection dates, network category codes, number of people at the property, energy investments (e.g. solar, pumps, electric fence), retailer

meter data

consumption data from meters connected to our network e.g., aggregated monthly consumption

about your service providers

details of your service providers that we may need to deal with e.g., your electrician, builder, surveyor, lawyer, architect, insurer

claims, investigations, complaints, or disputes

the date of the event, what happened, who was involved, what others involved say about what happened, any documents or other information provided to us in relation to the event, emails and other correspondence about the event, recordings of phone calls with us about the event, details relevant to insurance claims, and information that helps us assess the event if we need to pay you, we’ll collect information such as your bank account number

health and safety

details of incidents that may involve you

sensitive information

in limited circumstances we may collect sensitive information e.g. medically dependent or vulnerable people at an address

communications

recordings of your calls to us, notes of discussions and meetings, and emails

online interactions

details of your visits to our website and social media pages, fields you complete in online forms, details about competitions you enter or apply to take part in our Sponsorship Programme.

website analytics, cookies

age and demographics (via Google ads and Facebook), IP address, cookie IDs, advertising IDs, device IDs, location and browsing activity

services from contractors or suppliers

sufficient personal information to maintain business relationship

job applications

details about your skills and experience including CVs, references, and assessments

publicly available information

details from LINZ and the Companies Office website, results of online searches, media reports, Council records and archives

How do we use and share your personal information?

For many of you we will share information about your energy consumption with energy retailers to enable accurate and regular billing.  We may also share information about your connection to our network to provide continuity of your energy supply. 

The personal information is available to many of our staff to enable a seamless service in all the work that we undertake.  We have policy, and training that informs all our employees about the responsibility they have when using your information. We do not tolerate behaviour by our employees that does not meet our expectations for the responsible use and management of your information. 

There may be occasions when we share or disclose your information because the law permits or compels us to do so.  In these circumstances, we will only share sufficient information that we believe is necessary to satisfy the nature of the request of us. For example;

  • When law enforcement agencies serve a search warrant or production order on us
  • When law enforcement agencies request personal information from us when investigating criminal offences.  We understand we have a discretion to provide information in these circumstances and we take great care to ensure that the required personal information is relevant and necessary to assist in a valid and ongoing criminal investigation. We realise that we can decline these sorts of requests and suggest that the agency acquire a court order prior to the request
  • When it is necessary to share information to prevent or lessen a serious threat to the health or safety of any person
  • When we are required by other laws to disclose information

How do we keep your personal information secure?

All Network Waitaki staff have a responsibility to protect the personal information they handle against loss, misuse, or unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.

The personal information we collect and acquire may be stored within one or several databases depending on the type of personal information and the ways we need to use it. We may use cloud storage to store your information but acknowledge that we remain responsible for your personal information while it is held by our agents.

To compliment systems security, we recognise that our staff need to have good guidance and training in both good privacy practice and information security.  Key safeguards that we have in place include:

  • All Network Waitaki staff must only access or use personal information – whether within an information system or in hard copy – if it is necessary for a legitimate business purpose connected with their role
  • Access to key systems holding personal information is restricted to only those users with a legitimate business need.  This access is restricted and monitored with access rights of all users reviewed on a regular basis by the custodians of the system or information 
  • We have an internal privacy policy that sets out the company’s expectations and all staff are required to agree and sign up to specific confidentiality and privacy requirements
  • Where personal information is only available in hard copy form it is stored in a secured location
  • Encryption is used to protect personal information held in databases
  • We have many layers of defence (both physical and systems based) to detect, prevent, respond, and recover from potential security breaches that align with industry best practice.  This is independently tested on a regular basis.
  • We also take care to ensure that the personal information we collect is retained within our systems only for as long as we have a lawful purpose to use it. If we need to destroy personal information, we take all reasonable steps to ensure that this is done safely and securely

Can you access and correct the personal information that we hold about you?

All individuals have the right to request a copy of the personal information Network Waitaki holds about them, and to ask Network Waitaki to correct their personal information if they think it is wrong (these are called “privacy requests”).

We will usually correct information that we hold about you if you point out it is wrong. If for some reason, we are unable to make the correction you ask for, we will let you know the reason why but instead will ask you for a statement of what you wanted to be corrected and will make sure that statement sits alongside your information.

The easiest way to request a copy of or access to, or correct your personal information is to email us at service@networkwaitaki.co.nz

Please note that you can only request or correct personal information about yourself unless you have the consent of another person to act on their behalf. We are also obliged to check that you’re who you say you are so that we don’t release information to the wrong persons. This might involve checking your identity documents or verifying your signature. Please understand that we must do this in order to protect your privacy and the privacy of other customers.

We’re required by the Privacy Act to make a decision on your request – and tell you what it is – within 20 working days. However, we’ll usually respond to you more quickly than this. Where we cannot make a decision within 20 working days, we’ll let you know and explain why.

We will be as open as we can with you but sometimes, we might need to withhold personal information, for example where the information is commercially sensitive, legally privileged or includes personal information about someone else. If we withhold information from you, we’ll tell you why.

If you have a concern or a question about your information or you wish to complain about something we have done with your information, please tell us. You can contact our Privacy Officer at privacy@networkwaitaki.co.nz

If for some reason we have not been able to resolve your concerns, then you have the right to make a complaint to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner by:

  • completing an online complaint form at <www.privacy.org>; or
  • writing to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, PO Box 10-094, The Terrace, Wellington 6143.

Website privacy

You can access and browse our site without disclosing your personal information. We do not automatically record personal information and we do not link information that is recorded automatically with personal information about you. We do not attempt to identify you or your browsing activities.

If you visit our website to read or download information, we automatically record some non-personal statistical information, including;

  • the type of browser you use
  • the type of operating system you use
  • the screen resolution of your PC
  • the date and time you access our site
  • the pages you have accessed, the links clicked on, and the documents downloaded
  • the internet address from which you accessed our site (i.e. IP address)
  • the search terms you used to find content on our website, and

Our website uses cookies to temporarily store information to enhance your browsing experience.

Cookies are text files placed on your computer to collect standard internet log and visitor behaviour information in an anonymous form – that is, cookies do not collect personal information.

You can accept or decline cookies by modifying the settings on your browser. Disabling cookies will not stop you from using our website.

Updates to our privacy statement

We regularly review and update our privacy statement so it’s accurate and relevant. The changes will take effect when posted here.

This privacy statement was last updated June 2022.

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