Introduction
We at Baycorp are committed to your privacy. As part of that commitment we aim to comply fully with the Information Privacy Principles for the fair handling of personal information, as set out in the Privacy Act 1993.
This privacy policy explains how we comply with the Information Privacy Principles. It details how we collect personal information, how we maintain, use, disclose and secure that information and destroy information that is no longer needed. It also provides some detail about your privacy rights along with our general rights and obligations and our policy in relation to the personal information we keep on record.
Who are "we"?
In this Privacy Policy, all references to "we", "us", "our", and “Baycorp” include all companies in the Baycorp Group. The group includes:
Your personal information may be accessed and used by any of us for the purposes referred to below.
The Privacy Act 1993
The Privacy Act 1993 sets out principles that govern the access, storage and use of your personal information. It promotes and protects consumer privacy. The Privacy Act establishes twelve privacy principles:
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Principles 1, 2, 3 and 4 relate to the collection of personal information;
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Principles 5 and 9 relate to the storage or personal information;
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Principles 6 and 7 relate to the access to and correction of personal information;
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Principles 8 and 10 relate to the use of personal information;
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Principle 11 relates to the disclosure of personal information;
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Principle 12 relates to the use of unique identifiers.
You can find the complete version of the Privacy Act Principles at www.privacy.org.nz and the Privacy Act at www.legislation.govt.nz.
Purpose of information collection
Personal information is information about an identifiable individual. Personal information may be used and disclosed within Baycorp to administer our services, which predominantly relate to the recovery of debts. We may disclose relevant personal information to external organisations that help us to provide our services. These organisations are bound by confidentiality agreements. They may include overseas organisations.
Collection of information
We collect information about you when we perform debt collection services for our clients. We will not collect personal information unless it is necessary for one or more of our functions or activities. The information will be collected lawfully and fairly, and not in an unreasonably intrusive way. We may collect the information directly from you, or from other sources where the Privacy Act 1993 allows us to do this. We will insofar as reasonably possible collect the information directly from you. If this is not possible the information may be collected from other sources, including publications and databases that are publicly or commercially available.
Where we collect the information from another source we will take reasonable steps to ensure you are made aware of how to contact us to access the information, how and why we collected the information, and what we will do with it, unless specific exemptions apply. Sensitive information will only be collected with your consent, unless specific exemptions apply.
Baycorp may monitor telephone conversations for training and quality purposes. Please inform the operator if you do not wish your call monitored. When a call is monitored it may be recorded. Any recorded calls are only retained for a period for 30 days. The record is only used for training and quality purposes.
Information Disclosure
We may release information about you where you have authorised us to, when required to, or permitted by law.
We may disclose information where disclosure is connected to the purpose for which it was collected – e.g. field agents, mailing houses, and mercantile agents. (These organisations are limited in their use of such personal information to the purposes of our business only).
Storage and security of personal information
We take all reasonable steps to protect the personal information we hold about you from misuse and loss, and from unauthorised access, modification and disclosure. We have physical, electronic and procedural safeguards to protect information about our customers which is held by us.
Our security measures include:
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Storing all personal information securely;
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Requiring employees to use logins and passwords for access to all systems; and
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Requiring all staff to maintain the confidentiality of customer information.
Baycorp uses secure methods to destroy or de-identify any personal information as soon as the law permits, provided the information is no longer needed by us for any purpose. Ordinarily, for information about a particular account, we destroy the information seven years from the day to settle the account with Baycorp.
Access to personal information
As a New Zealand citizen or resident, you have certain rights with regard to the information held about you. You can seek access to the personal information we hold about you. A "reasonable charge" for access may apply. For access to your information please contact our Privacy Officer.
Correction of Information
We take reasonable steps to ensure that all information we hold about our customers is accurate, complete and up to date. Customers may ask us at any time to correct personal information held by us about them, which they believe is incorrect or out of date. We will deal with such requests within a reasonable time.
If we disagree as to the accuracy of the information, customers may request that we attach a statement to that information noting that the customer considers it is not accurate, complete or up to date.
How to contact us
If you have any questions, concerns or complaints about our privacy policy or practices, or you wish to request access to any of the personal information we hold about you, please contact us as follows:
Privacy Officer, Baycorp (NZ) Limited, PO Box 90845, Victoria Street, Auckland.
Telephone number: 0800 081 576, Email:privacy@baycorp.co.nz
This Privacy Statement was last updated on 24 October 2006.