Privacy

Environment Southland (Southland Regional Council) (referred to in this privacy policy as the Council, we, our, or us) is committed to protecting the personal information of individuals. This privacy policy sets out how and why we may collect, use and disclose your ‘personal information’ (as that term is defined in the Privacy Act 2020 (the Act)) and has been prepared in accordance with the Council’s obligations and your rights set out in the Act.

This policy applies to (Environment Southland) the Southland Regional Council whenever we collect personal information from you.

In this privacy policy we explain:

how and why we collect personal information;
when we might use and disclose personal information to other people;
how that information is stored;
how you can access and correct that information.

This privacy policy does not limit or exclude any rights that you have or may have under the Act.

It may be necessary to depart from this policy if any exceptions in the Act apply. In addition, the Council may change this privacy policy from time to time by uploading a revised privacy policy on our website at https://www.es.govt.nz/privacy

Collecting personal information

We collect your personal information in order to fulfil the legislative requirements of our business and to provide other services to you. We may collect the personal information about you, including (but not limited to) the following:

name
contact information (including, but not limited to, your phone number, physical address, postal address and email address)
location
metadata obtained through your use of our website, including your IP address, computer and connection information, referring web page, standard web log information, language settings, and timezone
computer or network details
interactions and communications with us either directly, via phone or email
information obtained by or submitted to us from you through your use (or prospective use) of our website, including information and documents submitted by you, your GPS position, pages viewed, buttons clicked, viewing time, keyboard searches
billing, purchase information, or payment information (such as your credit or debit card details

The Council may receive information about you through our website, applications, communication systems, or other communication.

We may also receive information about you from third parties, including public sources.

Use of personal information

We use personal information we collect about you for purposes authorised by you and or permitted by New Zealand legislation, including (but not limited to) the following:

Privacy Act 2020;
Local Government Act 2002;
Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA); and
Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987 (LGOIMA).

Unless expressly authorised to do so by you or under this privacy policy, we will only disclose your personal information to a third party where the disclosure relates to the purposes for which the information was collected, or where we may be required by law to do so.

Information held in relation to newsletter subscriptions

We provide email subscription options for updates on various topics. Subscription to email updates is optional, and users can unsubscribe at any time.

Making information public

The Council is required by law to make certain information that it holds available to third parties and/or the public (including on our website). Your information may be used and/or disclosed in accordance with the provisions of any of the Council’s statutory requirements.

For example:

The LGOIMA sets out the Council’s obligations in relation to official information held by us. Official information, which may include personal information, may be disclosed in accordance with the terms of that legislation.
The RMA requires the Council to make copies of resource consent applications publicly available.
Submissions on certain matters under the RMA (including, but not limited to, submissions on consents, proposed plans or plan changes) are also made publicly available.

There are limited circumstances when your personal information can be kept confidential, even where the above applies. If you consider you have compelling reasons why your personal information should be kept confidential, please contact us.

Storage of personal information

The Council takes all reasonable steps to ensure your personal information is safe from loss, unauthorised use, modification, disclosure, and any other misuse.

All information is stored electronically (requiring logins and passwords) or physically (in secured premises). Only authorised persons are permitted to access your personal information.

We will use, disclose or retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purpose for which it was collected and as otherwise permitted or required by law.

In the event of a privacy breach, we have procedures for notifying the Privacy Commissioner and the individual affected, including setting out the reasonable steps we have taken to mitigate the effects of a privacy breach, should we be required to do so under law.

CCTV cameras and webcams

CCTV cameras and webcams may be used in areas that are clearly linked to the cameras specific purpose.

The Council will never engage in covert monitoring or surveillance (that is, where individuals are unaware that the monitoring or surveillance is taking place) unless, in highly exceptional circumstances, for internal purposes where there are reasonable grounds to suspect that criminal activity or serious misconduct is taking place and, after suitable consideration, the Council reasonably believes there is no less intrusive way to deal with the issue. The use of covert monitoring or surveillance must be approved by the Chief Executive. The decision to carry out covert monitoring will be fully documented and will set out how the decision to use covert means was reached and by whom. Given that such surveillance would only be used internally (i.e. within the Council’s workplace) risk of intrusion on innocent employees will always be a primary consideration in reaching any such decision.

Access to your personal information we hold

You have the right to ask for a copy of any personal information we hold about you, and to ask for it to be corrected if you think it is wrong. If you'd like to ask for a copy of your information, or have it corrected, please contact us at service@es.govt.nz, or 0800 76 88 45 or write to:

The Privacy Officer

Environment Southland

Private Bag 90116

Invercargill

You can also use the Privacy Commissioner's online tool AboutMe to ask about your personal information we hold.

If you are concerned that we may have breached the Privacy Act or if you are not sure of our obligations, you can call the Privacy Commissioner's Privacy Hotline: 0800 803 909.

Improving this website

When you use the online feedback form, the enquiries are stored and analysed for the purposes of improving this website.

We also collect statistical information about your visit to help improve the site. This information is aggregated and doesn't identify you personally. It includes:

your IP address;
the search terms you used;
the pages you accessed on this website and the links you clicked on;
the date and time you visited the website;
the referring site (if any) through which you clicked through to this site;
your operating system (e.g. Windows, Mac, Android);
the type of web browser you use (e.g. Internet Explorer, Chrome, Mozilla Firefox);
other things like your screen resolution and the language setting of your browser.

This site generates persistent session cookies for the purpose of monitoring site usage. The cookies don't collect personal information. You can disable them or clear them out of your web browser without affecting your ability to use the site.