NZIQS Privacy Statement

1 August 2023

Introduction

The New Zealand Institute of Quantity Surveyors (Inc) (we, us, our) complies with the New Zealand Privacy Act 2020 (the Act) when dealing with 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.

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.

This policy was last updated on 1 August 2023.

We collect personal information from you, including information about your:

  • name
  • contact information
  • birthdate
  • gender
  • billing or purchase information
  • occupation, job title and career history
  • educational qualifications and provider

Providing some information is optional. If you choose not to enter any of the information we collect, we may be unable to determine your membership level or provide you with some services.

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. 

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

We will use your personal information:

  • to verify your identity
  • for administration purposes
  • to process membership applications
  • 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 bill you and to collect money that you owe us, including authorising and processing credit card transactions
  • to respond to communications from you
  • for any specific purpose that we notify at the time the personal information is collected
  • 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.

 
Besides our staff, we may disclose your personal information to:  

  • the NZIQS Board, Branch or Committee members to process your membership applications, or to operate any of our products and services such as events
  • any business that supports our services and products, including any person that hosts or maintains any underlying IT system or data centre that we use to provide the website or other services and products
  • other third parties (for anonymised statistical information)
  • a person who can require us to supply your personal information (e.g., a regulatory authority)
  • any other person authorised by the Act or another law (e.g., a law enforcement agency)
  • any other person authorised by you.

A business that supports our services and products may be located outside New Zealand.  This may mean your personal information is held and processed outside New Zealand.

We do not sell, rent, or lease your personal information to third parties.

Storing and Protecting your personal information

Your personal information is stored in physical files in the NZIQS office, as well as on an electronic database provided by a third party.

We will take reasonable steps to keep your personal information safe from loss, unauthorised activity, or other misuse.

Retention of personal information

We will not keep personal information for longer than is necessary to achieve the purpose for which we may lawfully use or retain it.

Accessing and correcting your personal information

Subject to certain grounds for refusal set out in the Act, you have the right to access your readily retrievable personal information that we hold and to request a correction to your personal information. 

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 on the personal information that you requested the correction.

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.

Cookies

We use cookies (an alphanumeric identifier that we transfer to your computer’s hard drive so that we can recognise your browser) to monitor your use of the website.  You may disable cookies by changing the settings on your browser, although this may mean that you cannot use all of the features of the website.

Residents in the European Economic Area

In addition to the above privacy rules and in relation to the GDPR – General Data Protection Regulation issued by the European Union:

The following rights apply to a resident in the European Economic Area (EEA):

  • Access – You have the right to ask a copy of the personal information we hold about you. Proper identification is needed before we provide the information asked from us.
  • Deletion – You have the right to ask for the deletion of the personal information we hold about you. This applies when you withdraw your consent. This right also requires consideration first in cases where such information is needed to comply with legal obligations.
  • Restriction - You have the right to limit the personal information that we process if such information is believed to be incorrect; the purpose to which such information is being processed cease to exist; or our processing is believed to not conform to law. This option is available where deletion is not possible due to legal or other obligation or because you do not want us to delete your personal information.
  • Objection – You have the right to object the processing of your personal information depending on your situation unless we need to continue processing it in relation to a legal claim.
  • Data portability – You have the right to receive your personal information which was previously provided to us in a commonly use and machine-readable format and have also the right to transmit that data to another controller.

Contacting us

If you have any questions about this privacy policy, our privacy practices, or if you would like to request access to, or correction of, your personal information, you can contact the NZIQS Privacy Officer at:

membership@nziqs.co.nz 
04 473 5521
P O Box 10469, Wellington, 6140