Privacy Statement

We have responsibilities under New Zealand laws relating to privacy and information that governs how we collect, store, secure, correct, use and share your information. These laws include:

• The Information Privacy Principles that are contained in the Privacy Act
• The Official Information Act
• Public Records Act

Depending on the product or service, if you choose to not provide your personal information when requested, we may not be able to deliver the product or service that you have requested. We will endeavour to make this as clear as possible for each product and service.

Storing your Personal Information

We may store your personal information in any of the following locations:

• On premise Databases 
• Cloud Services for Government Services in New Zealand (DCSG)
• AWS Cloud located in Sydney, Australia region
• Azure Cloud located in Sydney, Australia region,

or as otherwise notified to you via this Privacy Statement or at the time of collection.

Information security

At NZ Post, we are committed to protecting and securing your personal information. We aim to store your information securely and in compliance with our obligations under the Privacy Act 2020.  

We understand that you may be concerned about the security of the personal information we collect from you online. Accordingly, we have systems in place to ensure our online dealings with you are as secure as your dealings with us in person, or on the telephone.

 

Collection of personal information 

Personal information is information that can personally identify you. This includes things like your name, date of birth, address, mobile number, or email address. Sometimes we need to collect your personally identifiable information in order to assist you.

The type of information that we collect will depend on the purpose for collecting the information, and how it is collected.  The information you provide to us through our website or app, when using our products and services, over the phone, in person in our stores, or to third parties such as merchants you purchase from or an overseas postal or courier service assists us to provide our products and services to you, to investigate complaints, and to train our staff effectively and efficiently.

We may also collect personal information in the form of CCTV or other digital images, in order to protect the safety and security of customers, customers’ mail or parcels, our staff and contractors, our assets, and premises.

We may collect your personal information when you:

• Fill in an application form
• Deal with us through our Customer Care Centre by phone or through the online query form
• Come into or purchase a product or service in an NZ Post store
• Have an item sent to you by someone who uses our services or otherwise receive a delivery from us
• Register for, or use, our online products and services
• Email us
• Create an account with us
• Participate in a NZ Post promotion
• Provide us with feedback
• Complete a survey
• Come into or within the vicinity of one of our sites
• Contact, register with, post to, like or follow any of our social media websites, pages, forums or blogs
• Ask us to contact you

As well as using this information for the purposes you have provided it, we may also use it:

• To provide training to our staff,
• For investigations of complaints, or of safety or security incidents,
• For quality assurance purposes,
• To conduct analysis to assist the design and improvement of our products and services, and
• For credit control and account management purposes.

Information collected indirectly (ie given by you to third parties such as merchants you purchase from or an overseas postal or courier service) will be treated by us as if it were collected directly from you, and will be used for the same purposes as listed above.

Domestic and International Parcels:

When you send a mail or parcel item with us or someone else sends an item addressed to you, we will capture the details of the item including shipping activities (for tracking purposes), the weight and dimensions of the parcel, and the sender and receiver details. Usually, this information will be provided by the sender or receiver on either our domestic parcel label or international parcel consignment (International Customs Declaration Forms known as CN22 and CN23) and provided in hard copy and/or digitally to us. This information allows us to deliver the item correctly, provide updates on the delivery, respond to queries from both the sender and the receiver, and provide information as required for border clearance purposes. These services are often performed on behalf of, or in conjunction with, other organisations and agencies and we may need to share the personal information in order to send or deliver the item.

The personal information collected for domestic items for both sender and receiver:

• Surname
• First Name
• Physical Address

And may also include:

• Phone number(s)
• Email address

The personal information collected for International Parcels for both sender and intended receiver is:

• Full name and postal address

And may also include:

• Phone number(s) 
• Email address 
• Signature 
• Delivery point address
• Detail of parcel contents

The information collected for the Customs Declarations forms is shared with Overseas Postal Delivery Operators via electronic messaging known as ITMATT Messages. This information is also shared with NZ Customs Service and Ministry for Primary Industries.

Mail Redirection and Mail Hold: When we redirect your mail, we collect your personal information and that of other residents at the same address, in order to redirect mail to a new address. We may also use this information if we need to contact you in the event of issues with your redirection.

The personal information we collect for Mail Redirection and Mail Hold includes:

• Applicant Surname
• First Name
• Contact Phone Number
• Email Address
• Physical Address – From and To
• Addressee Details 
• Surname
• First Name
• Middle Initial
• Title
• Form of ID sighted (one of the following):
  • Passport
  • Driver’s Licence
  • Kiwi Access Card
  • Community Services Card
  • Super Gold Card

Parcel Redirection: When we redirect a parcel for you, we collect your personal information in order to redirect your parcel to a new address. We may also use this information if we need to contact you in the event of issues with your redirection.
 

PO Boxes (Box Bag 1 and Box Bag 2 forms): Personal information is collected so we can provide you with our PO Box and Private Bag and mail delivery services, as well as providing you with information about our other products and services if you have requested this. This information may also be published in a directory and/or made available to businesses and organisations who wish to market products and services to you in the form of a marketing list, if you have agreed to this. Other than set out above, or where required by law, this information is not disclosed to third parties.

The personal information collected on the Application for PO Box/Private Bag is:

• Surname
• First Name
• Title
• Physical Address
• Billing Address
• Contact phone details
• Email Address

You have a right to access and request correction of this information by completing an online request form or by writing directly to the Privacy Officer at [email protected] or the Box/Bag services centre, PO Box 39990, Wellington Mail Centre, Lower Hutt 5045, New Zealand.

Bill Payment and Purchase Connect: When you pay your bills at NZ Post, we only capture enough information to facilitate the payment. Generally, this includes a reference number for the bill, but does not include your personal information.

Identity and Document Services: We provide some identity and document services that allow our customers to apply for identity cards or other official documentation such as a driver’s licence. These services, which are performed on behalf of other organisations and agencies, require the collection of your personal information. We pass this information to the service provider and do not retain a copy:

• Gem Visa Applications
• Kiwi Access Card
• Vehicle services

Paxsters: The forward-facing camera mounted on our Paxsters (mail delivery buggies) is used to record visual images for use in investigating accidents and incidents threatening the security of our employees. We collect images but do not record audio. We may capture your personal image, but these are only stored for 24 hours and then overwritten.

Premises: Our operational and corporate sites, PO Box lobbies, NZ Post-operated stores, and Parcel Collect counters may use CCTV to record visual images for use in investigating incidents threatening the safety or security of delivery items or our employees, contractors, assets or premises. Your personal image may be collected when you pass by close to a NZ Post site, if the CCTV camera is positioned to capture the close vicinity of the site (for example, entry doors or gates). We collect images but do not record audio. We may capture your personal image, but these are only stored for up to 90 days and then overwritten.

Third party operators of NZ Post stores may operate CCTV in similar ways. They provide access to those images to NZ Post, if requested, for investigation purposes.    

YouShop: We may share your personal information with a provider of YouShop related services that is located in a country other than New Zealand, where we have made a business decision to use a trusted overseas based service provider that is in the business of providing data storage and/or data processing services (for example, the service provider that hosts our YouShop email marketing platform).

We ensure that any time we share personal information with YouShop service providers we do so securely and we take steps to ensure that all our service providers with whom we share personal information agree to protect the privacy and security of your personal information, destroy that data when it is no longer needed for the purposes for which it was supplied to them and use that data only for the purposes for which it is disclosed.

OCR Video Coding: We use video-coding of images taken when our sorting machines cannot read addresses printed on mail or parcel items. We send these images to an overseas third party to manually enter the address into our system.

Contact Centre Audio Recording: We record calls for training purposes, and may also use these recordings for investigations and quality assurance.

Leave my Parcel: If a person at your address implements an ongoing Leave my Parcel authority under our Always Leave my Parcel service for that address, this authorises us to sign for and leave items addressed to anyone at that address without obtaining a signature at the time of delivery. Your items will be left in the place stated in the authority. This may expose your personal information to other persons living at or visiting your address. This can only be revoked by cancelling the Always Leave my Parcel service.

Missed my Parcel: We will ask to sight your photo ID before providing the item you have come to collect, but will not take a copy or a note of the number. We will note your ID number when you collect on behalf of someone else and hold this for 3 months, in case there are any queries by the owner or addressee for the item.

Request for Information: We will request proof of identity prior to releasing personal information.  

Official Information Requests: We may request proof of New Zealand residence prior to answering an Official Information (OIA) request.

Letters to Santa: We collect your name, age, home address, email address, preferred language for your response from Santa, and gift choice and message to Santa via an online form (on behalf of Santa) for the purpose of sending you a ‘thank you’ letter from Santa, so you know he has received your Christmas letter. Santa would also like NZ Post to keep this information so they can let you know about how to write to Santa next year and invite the parents/guardians to participate in any related surveys to ask for your feedback.

Your personal information is collected and stored by NZ Post. After receiving your personal address information, NZ Post (with help from Santa) will use your personal address information to send a reply ‘thank you’ letter. Your contact information may also be used to tell you about how to write to Santa next year and invite the parents/guardians to participate in any related surveys to ask for your feedback.  

Information collected through our website and apps

Cookies

A cookie is a file that enables us to store information related to your device as well as you whilst visiting our webpage. We collect cookies because they help us to determine how the frequency of visits on our webpages and they help us tailor your experience when using our website. We may collect non-personal information from you such as browser type, operating system, and web pages visited to help us manage our web site, services and customer experience.

Uses and sharing 

The primary reason we collect, use and share your personal information is to enable the delivery of our products and services to you and to conduct analysis to assist the design and improvement of our products and services (including our website, apps, etc) to help with enhancing your  user experience.

Parcel notifications and service messages

 We may contact you periodically to advise you of new or enhanced functionality which is available in connection with our products and services. You will not be obliged to adopt any such functionality. Where your personal information has been previously obtained by us through the course of providing you with our products or services (including when you make a purchase from a merchant who uses our services to deliver your order), we may:

• Keep and use this information to provide you with service messages (e.g. tracking messaging telling you and merchants where your parcel is and where and when to expect delivery)
• In the course of improving our processes, products and services
• In keeping our people, you and the community safe.

We will only use this information to communicate directly with you where that communication is reasonably expected or necessary (such as to let you know about a delivery or a missed delivery waiting for collection).

Product design, development and improvement

We are always seeking to improve the way our products and services are delivered and developed. We may use your personal information to help us:

• Conduct market research to ensure we are and continue to meet your needs;
• Providing you with information, products and services which are relevant and tailored to you.

Direct marketing 

From time to time, we may use the personal information we collect from you to identify NZ Post products and services which we believe may be of interest to you. We may contact you to let you know about these products and services and how they may benefit you, if you have consented to receive this information.

You may give us your consent in several ways including by selecting a box on a form where we seek your permission to send you marketing information, or sometimes your consent is implied from your interactions or relationship with us. Where your consent is implied, it is on the basis that you would have a reasonable expectation of receiving a marketing communication based on your interactions or relationship with us.

Direct Marketing generally takes the form of electronic marketing or telemarketing but may also include other less traditional or emerging channels. 

You can ask us to remove or amend any previous consent you provided by directing your request via the channels provided under ‘How to contact us’.

Other Information We Collect

There will be times when we collect personal information over the phone, directly (for example when you visit an NZ Post store), or when it is shared with us by third parties i.e. a merchant from whom you have purchased an item for delivery, an overseas postal or courier services, customs agencies or agencies that look after biosecurity and border control.

Other Information we may collect from you include, but is not limited to:

• Your name
• Postal address
• Delivery and collection addresses 
• Phone number
• New Zealand Business Number (NZBN)
• IRD number 
• e-mail address
• contents of parcel

This personal information may also include details of the products and services which you have purchased from us, including the date that you purchased these and the nature of any deliveries.

If you wish to establish a credit or other account with us to pay the fees we charge, we will collect some additional personal financial information that is necessary for that service. This information will be held and used to provide the services you’ve asked for from us, and used by us for credit management and control purposes. We may also collect information from, and disclose information to, other people (including credit agencies) for these purposes. Such information may include:

• Your billing address
• financial institution account details
• References

We use your Personal Information in order to perform our services and/or supply our products to you. We also use it to administer and manage those services or products for you, for example:

• Inform you of ways that our products and/or services provided to you could be improved or let you know about updates, special offers or other promotions to our products or services that we think you might be interested in knowing about
• Send you a notification via SMS or email to let you know when to expect delivery of your item
• Personalise our delivery of products or services for you based on the information we hold about you
• Update our records to make sure that your contact details are up to date
• Required by law
• Keeping you, delivery items or our employees, contractors, assets or premises, safe, for example by using CCTV
• Maintain and develop our business systems and infrastructure, including testing and upgrading of these systems, planning, product or service development, quality control and research purposes
• Verify your identity
• Training our staff
• Investigating complaints, or security or safety incidents
• Billing or debt recovery
• Enhance your experience when visiting our website
•  

We believe in being transparent in how we collect, store, use and delete personal information we hold about you. In order to provide our products and services we may need to disclose your personal information to third parties, which includes organisations outside of New Zealand for example: when we deliver an international parcel for or to you.

We will only disclose information:

• With your consent and your consent may be implied or express, written or verbal
• Required or authorised by law (e.g. disclosure to various government agencies such as the Inland Revenue Department, NZ Customs or disclosure to courts under subpoena)
• As a matter of contractual obligation to the extent of supplying services or products to you
• In the public interest (e.g. where a crime, fraud, misdemeanour or other illegal activity is committed or suspected and disclosure in the circumstances is justified)
• To third parties as required for the purposes set out in this Statement

 Third party disclosure

We do make your personal information available temporarily to companies who perform services for us - such as specialist information technology companies, cloud service providers, mail houses or other contractors to NZ Post. In these circumstances, we require those companies to protect your personal information as diligently as we do. Strict contractual and other quality assurance measures are used to ensure your personal information is protected.

Overseas use and disclosure

We may facilitate the transfer of personal information to countries outside New Zealand (for example when you send mail or parcels overseas). We will only do so in compliance with all applicable New Zealand privacy laws. Where you engage in interactions with foreign jurisdictions (for example, purchase items overseas), resulting in delivery of articles within New Zealand, our delivery of that item from the border to your address will comply with New Zealand Privacy law.

In some instances, our information (including your personal information) may be transferred to, and held by, our service providers in New Zealand and overseas (for example, where it is stored under a cloud-based services). Some administrative functions are provided to us by a third party service provider in the Philippines. Cloud services are provided via servers in jurisdictions such as the US, the UK, Europe and Australia.

We will take reasonable steps to protect your personal information no matter what country it is stored in or transferred to. We have procedures and data transfer arrangements in place as appropriate to help ensure this. We do everything we reasonably can within our power to ensure that the service provider has reasonable security and date protection measures in place.

Your right to access your information

You have the right to access your personal information held by NZ Post, other than where there is an exception at law. You can request your personal information at any time by contacting our Privacy Officer at [email protected] or write to us at Private Bag 39990, Wellington Mail Centre, Lower Hutt 5045, New Zealand. We ask that you identify, as clearly as possible, the type (or types) of information requested. The Privacy Officer will deal with your request within 20 working days (or otherwise in accordance with legislation). We reserve the right to charge you a fee for supplying this information to you.

Exceptions

Your right to access your personal information is not absolute. In some circumstances, the law permits us to refuse your request to provide you with access to your personal information. For example, where giving access to your information would have an unreasonable impact on the privacy of other individuals, or would pose a serious threat to the life, health or safety of any individual or to public health or public safety.

Updating your information 

It is inevitable that some personal information which we hold will become out of date. We will take reasonable steps to ensure that the personal information which we hold remains accurate and, if you advise us of a change of details, we will amend our records accordingly.

Where your information has been disclosed to a third party, NZ Post will take reasonable steps to notify the third party of the correction.

Where we are unable to update your information, we will use reasonable endeavours to provide an explanation in writing as to why the information cannot be corrected.

Our services are aimed at adults over 18 years of age but in the circumstances where children can access services, we aim to ensure that our privacy policies are written so that their caregivers can understand their charges’ rights.

NZ Post is committed to working with our customers to ensure fair resolution of any privacy requests, concerns or complaints.

You can contact us about any privacy issue by emailing [email protected] or by writing to us at Private Bag 39990, Wellington Mail Centre, Lower Hutt 5045, New Zealand

Privacy related incidents

Despite our every effort to protect your personal information, there remains the possibility that a privacy related incident could occur. In the event of loss or unauthorised disclosure or use of personal information, NZ Post will:

• Seek to rapidly identify and secure the breach to prevent any ongoing breaches
• Assess the nature and severity of the breach including the type of personal information involved and the risk of serious harm to affected individuals
• Notify the affected individuals directly (if appropriate and possible)
• Follow the Mandatory Breach Notification Process (if appropriate)
• Engage the appropriate authorities where criminal activity is suspected
• Put a notice on our website advising our customers of the breach (if appropriate)