Privacy Policy

Introduction

The Hei o Wharekaho SettlementTrust (we, us, our) complies with the Privacy Act 2020 (NZ) (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. If changes affect how we treat personal information provided by registered iwi members we will notify registered Iwi members of these changes.

How we collect personal information

We collect personal information about you in the following situations:

(i) if you register as a Ngāti Hei iwi member;
(ii) if you use the website Contact Us form to make an inquiry of us; or,
(iii) If you ask to be added to our general mailing list.

To keep our iwi beneficiary roll up to date we may also update your details on the website if they have changed and you ask us to update them.

What personal information we collect

General users
If you ask to join our mailing list, or make an inquiry through the website Contact Us form, we collect basic information about you (name, email address) in order to provide you with the services you’ve requested, e.g. to be added to a mailing list.

Iwi members
If you are registering as a Ngāti Hei Iwi member we collect more extensive information about you. This includes, but is not limited to, your name, gender, age, address and whakapapa (how you trace your heritage to Ngāti Hei). We do this so we can verify who you are and validate your connection to Ngāti Hei.

We may also ask other questions to help us understand the education and cultural or other skills we have available across the iwi. In all cases we do not require you to provide this information. Lastly, we ask you to provide any social media profiles you want to share with other registered iwi members, e.g. Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn etc.

How we use your personal information

General users
We will use your personal information:

to personalise your experience on this website
to let you know about services, activities, hui, wānanga and other events – which may require us to contact you electronically (e.g. by text or email)
to improve the services that we provide to you
to respond to communications from you
to protect and/or enforce our legal rights and interests, including defending any claim
for any other purpose authorised by you or the Act.
Iwi members

We will use your personal information:

to verify your identity and whakapapa
to personalise your experience on this website
to provide your individual entry in the Iwi Member Registry
to let you know about services, activities, hui, wānanga and other events – which may require us to contact you electronically (e.g. by text or email)
to improve the services that we provide to you
to respond to communications from you
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

In general

We may disclose your personal information to:

any business or services we rely on that supports our operation, including any person who hosts or maintains any underlying IT system or data centre that we use to provide the website or other services and activities, e.g. our website hosting and cloud storage providers, MailChimp for email/text messaging.
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 or service that supports our operation may be located outside of Aotearoa/NZ. This may mean your personal information is held and processed outside of the country. This includes overseas data storage.

The Iwi Member Directory
Logged-in registered, approved, iwi members have access to the Iwi Member Directory. The purpose of this directory is to support whakawhanungatanga (establishing relationships) across the iwi. The following information is disclosed:

Your profile photo
The personal, shared “bio” you have provided us
Your other iwi affiliations
Your hapū and/or most recent common ancestor (MRCA)
The social media links you provide.

Protecting your personal information

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

Accessing and correcting your personal information

Under the Privacy Act 2020 (NZ), you have the right to request access to the personal information we hold about you, and to ask us to correct it if you believe it is inaccurate, incomplete, or misleading.

If you are a registered Iwi Member you can view and correct the information yourself. You need to log-in to the website to do this.

Alternatively, you can ask us to make corrections on your behalf. Please contact us to do this. We will need to verify your identity. Please allow for up to 20 working days of receiving your request.

If we decline to correct your information, we will tell you why. You may ask us to attach a statement of your requested correction to the record. If we have shared your information with others and it is later corrected, we will take reasonable steps to notify those recipients.

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your request, you can contact the Office of the Privacy Commissioner at privacy.org.nz or call 0800 803 909.

Use of cookies

We use cookies (a unique identifier that we transfer to your computer’s hard drive so that we can recognise your browser) to personalise your web experience and 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.