Privacy Policy

Your privacy is very important to us.

This policy’s purpose is to help you understand what information we may collect about you during your engagement with ‘Here to help u’ on this website (the “Site”), by phone, or by email; as well as how we use and safeguard that information. The Privacy Act 2020 regulates us on how we collect, use, hold, disclose, access, correct, manage and dispose of your personal information.

This policy pertains to all services and programmes provided by 'Here to help u’.

To access, amend, or enquire about your data, please contact our Privacy Officer. The National Operations Manager is the Privacy Officer for ‘Here to help u’.

Email: info@heretohelpu.nz

If you submit a help request or participate in any of the other services on the Site that require personal information, we may request your name, location, phone contact number, email address and the support(s) you require in order to respond to your enquiries. We may also collect other personal information about you.

By engaging with ‘Here to help u’ or the resources on this Site you consent to the collection and use of your personal information in the manner we describe in this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree with these terms, do not use this Site or any of its forms or resources.

We collect information about you from:

• you, when you provide personal information about yourself to us, including via our website and any related service, through any contact with us, or when you use our services or products
• third parties authorised by you to refer you to ‘Here to help u’, provide personal information or who provide publicly available information
• a third party where this is allowed by law, for example a Royal Commission enquiry.
• if possible, we will collect personal information directly from you.

Depending on the service we are providing to you, the information we might collect from you, should we need it to deliver that service to you, might include:

• your name, age, gender, iwi, ethnicity, nationality, residential status, names and number of persons in your household, employment status, occupation, study status and income source
• your contact details, including your address, email address and/or phone number
• your WINZ number
• the type of help and wellbeing support you and/or your whānau need
• any questions or comments you submit via our site request form, feedback forms or general enquiry form
• information that is required for a specific provider in order to meet your request for help and wellbeing support
• information about your use of our website (explained further below).

Wherever possible we’ll offer you choices if the information is useful to us, but not absolutely necessary to deliver the service. This might include, for example, your ethnicity. Please let us know if you’re concerned about providing specific information, and we will try, if we can, to offer you choices that work for you.

We use third-party providers to store and process our data. We store most of the personal information we collect and generate electronically on Microsoft Azure cloud servers located in Australia, Digital Ocean servers in Singapore and Amazon Web Services servers. We also use Microsoft Office 365 for our email and other office productivity applications. While your information may be stored overseas, we only use providers that have comparable privacy safeguards to New Zealand.

We only retain personal information when there is a legitimate reason to in compliance with the requirements of the Public Records Act 2005. Once there is no longer a legitimate reason to retain the data, the data is deleted.

We take all reasonable steps to ensure any personal information we collect is protected against loss, unauthorised access and disclosure or any other misuse, including meeting the requirements prescribed by the New Zealand Government.

We take reasonable steps to ensure that our technology providers can meet our privacy and security requirements.

We will only use the personal information you provide to us for the purposes of delivering the services you have requested (such as arranging the wellbeing support you need) or carrying out our lawful functions. People will only see/use your information for the purposes of providing the services you are accessing.

Non-personal, non-identifiable information may be used for reports which allow the Wise Group to measure collective impact and may be assessed by third-parties, including researchers, government departments and funders to evaluate the effectiveness of how we work.

Here’s what ‘Here to help u’ will and won’t do with your personal information:

• Our system administrator, a system connector and the provider organisation/s that are assigned your specific request (either for help or to help) can see your personal information.
• Information you provide will be stored and used by us to evaluate and improve ‘Here to help u’.
• We may also use information collected from you as non-identifiable, anonymous data to inform research and reporting that could help improve community services and service provision to New Zealand people at a local level.
• We may also use information collected from you as non-identifiable, aggregated, anonymous data for the purpose of promoting this free tool to New Zealanders.
• Your personal information will be used to follow up with you on your help request, or offer of help, and then assign your request to a provider to support you.

Depending on the service we are providing to you and the information we might collect from you should we need it provide that service, we might use your personal information to:

• verify your identity
• contact you about your request, query, or feedback related to the service you received from ‘Here to help u’
• assign any help request you submit to ‘Here to help u’ to a provider that can help/support you
• ensure the clinical safety and wellbeing of our participants
• provide additional support to ensure a positive end-user experience
• follow up regarding research or evaluation you have already participated in
• inform research, evaluation and quality improvement
• send you electronic or hard copy newsletters, resources, or information you have requested
• consider and respond to your enquiry
• make a decision regarding your eligibility for funded wellbeing services
• improve our website and the delivery of our online services
• conduct internal statistical analysis within the Wise Group and meet our reporting requirements
• to protect and/or enforce our legal rights and interests, including defending any claim.

Personal information pertaining to your clinical safety and wellbeing may be used to follow up with you. This information may be shared with third parties if there are concerns about your immediate safety. Wherever possible, this will be communicated before we share information with third parties.

We may share your personal information to appropriately respond to your help request and/or enquiry. Your personal information is shared with the third-parties (e.g. community service providers) that we identify can help/support you and/or your whānau.

We may share your personal information with a third-party where the disclosure is authorised by you.

We may share personal information if required or permitted by law (for example to assist with the investigation of a criminal offence), to prevent or lessen a serious threat to the health and safety of a person or the public, and for statistical purposes where you will not be identified. If our staff are threatened or abused, we may refer this to the Police.

You have the right to request a copy of the personal information we hold about you (whether we have collected the information from you directly or from a third-party). You also have the right to ask us to correct your information if you think it is wrong.

We will process your request as soon as possible, and no later than 20 working days after we receive it. We will be as open as we can with you, but please note that your right to request personal information may be limited if it breaches another person’s right to privacy or is subject to overriding national security legislation.

We may occasionally need to withhold personal information, for example where the information requested is legally privileged. However, we will only ever withhold information where necessary.

You may request a correction of personal information that you consider is inaccurate. Where the correction requested is not able to be made or we dispute the accuracy of the correction, we will make a note on your personal information.

If we cannot resolve your concerns, then you have the right to complain to the Privacy Commissioner about our actions. In the first instance, please email (info@heretohelpu.nz) or write to us at:

marking it for the attention of the Privacy Officer.

All staff receive relevant information privacy training to minimise the risk of a privacy breach.

Personal information is only used for the purposes we have declared it will be used for. If it is disclosed outside of the purpose, any potential impact on individuals affected is assessed once the incident is discovered. If the impact is likely to cause serious harm our Privacy Officer is notified, so an internal investigation can be carried out and an action plan implemented.

If a breach of privacy occurs, we will advise our Privacy Officer who will assess what actions might sensibly be taken, and the likelihood of harm arising, and the Privacy Officer will notify the Privacy Commissioner and any affected individuals unless an exemption under the Privacy Act 2020 applies.

We want to know if you have concerns about our privacy practices, whether these relate to the way we collect or share information about you or our decision on your access request. This allows us to try and put things right for you and helps us to identify and fix any problems with our systems or processes.

In the first instance, let us know about your concerns and we will try our best to resolve it. This could include escalating your concerns to a senior staff member to ensure we have made the right decision and fully considered your concerns.

We use a range of technologies to deliver our website and online services, such as Google Analytics and online survey tools. We ensure that those technologies meet suitable security standards, and where they collect information from you, such as the type of computer/device being used to access the website, that this information is only used to improve our website and the services we offer.

When you visit, navigate through and interact with this Site, we use automated data collection technology (such as usage monitoring software, IP addresses, cookies, JavaScript and sessions) to collect and store certain information about your visit. These allow us to collect information about how you use the Site. This allows us to track your progress through the Site and enhance your online experience with ‘Here to help u’.

If you disable cookies, it may limit your access to some of the website’s content and features. You can choose to refuse cookies by turning them off in your browser and/or deleting them from your hard drive. You do not need to have cookies turned on to use our website, but your experience may be affected.

This Site contains hyperlinks to third-party websites. Some of these links may request or record information from users or use cookies or other methods to collect information from you. We have no control over and are not responsible for the content of such websites, or for the way those websites collect, hold, use, and distribute any personal information you provide. When visiting a third-party website from hyperlinks displayed on this website, we encourage you to review the privacy statements of those websites so that you can understand how the personal information you provide will be collected, held, used and distributed.

Non-personal information includes information that cannot be used to personally identify you, such as anonymous usage data, surveys, general demographic information, referring pages, entry and exit pages, and platform types.

We collect the following information about your use of our website, which we use to improve the quality and reliability of our website:

• your IP address
• the search terms you used
• the pages, resources, and files you accessed on our website and the links you clicked on
• the date and time you visited the site
• the referring site (if any) through which you clicked to our website
• your operating system (such as Windows 10)
• the type of web browser you use (such as Google Chrome)
• the type of device you use.

Our Site is not directed to children under the age of thirteen. We do not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from children under the age of thirteen. If we become aware that we have inadvertently received personally identifiable information from a user under the age of thirteen, we will delete such information from our records.

We do not knowingly allow children under the age of thirteen to submit a help request or otherwise distribute personally identifiable contact information through the Site or it’s services.

If you provide incomplete or inaccurate information or do not wish to identify yourself when you submit a help request with ‘Here to help u’, we’ll be unable to provide you with any services and /or support, including any updates to assist you.

Further personal information may be requested from you by a ‘Here to help u’ connector for the purposes outlined above. However, this information is not compulsory for you to provide.

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. All changes to this Privacy Policy will be effective immediately upon their posting to the website. We will notify you of material changes to this Privacy Policy by posting the changes of the Site. Information collected before changes are made will be treated in accordance with the previous Privacy Policy. Continued use of the Site and its forms after the effective date of a modified Privacy Policy will indicate your agreement to any modified terms. Each version of our Privacy Policy will be prominently marked with an effective date.

Privacy Policy version - July 2022

New policy published – 27 July 2022.