Waipa Networks Limited and its related business entities (we, our, us) are committed to protecting your personal information that is collected and used as part of carrying out our business activities. This Privacy Policy has been created to help you understand how we collect, use and protect your personal information when you visit our website https://waipanetworks.co.nz/ and interact with us or use our products and services.

If you have any questions, you can contact our Privacy Officer at privacy@waipanetworks.co.nz.

We care about your privacy.

We are committed to protecting your personal information and ensuring compliance with the New Zealand Privacy Act 2020 (“the Act”). All reasonable steps will be taken to ensure that personal information collected and retained by us is accurate, complete, and protected from unauthorised access, modification and disclosure.

This policy tells you about:

  • What personal information we may collect and hold about you.
  • How we collect your personal information.
  • How Waipa Networks uses your information.
  • Sharing with third parties.
  • Who has access to your personal information.
  • How we store your personal information.
  • How we safeguard your personal information outside of New Zealand.
  • Accessing and updating your personal information.
  • Cookies and internet use.
  • Updating our Privacy Policy.

What personal information we may collect.

Waipa Networks may collect personal information about you depending on the particular interaction we have with you.  We collect personal information from you directly and may collect it from third parties. Information we collect includes, but is not limited to:

  • Customer or landowner/occupier details such as name(s), address, phone numbers, e-mail address, details on any medically dependent or vulnerable people living there, and for organisations, what it is you do.
  • Stakeholder communication data such as notes of consultation with you as a stakeholder in our community, answers to surveys you complete online or via telephone, or at events.
  • Information about your property such as ICP, connection type, access, pets and stock on the property, trees and their proximity to our equipment, meter location, plans and maps, property photos, GIS data, fault history, installation inspection dates, network category codes, number of people at the property, energy investments (e.g., solar, pumps, electric fence), your Electricity Retailer(s).
  • Meter data such as how much power you use and when, and power quality data such voltage, current and power factor.
  • Details of service providers such as your electrician, builder, surveyor, lawyer or insurer should we need to deal with them in relation to your electricity supply.
  • Claims, complaints and disputes information such as the date of the event, what happened, who was involved, what others involved say about what happened, any documents or other information provided to us in relation to the event, emails and other correspondence about the event, recordings of phone calls with us about the event, details relevant to insurance claims, and information that helps us assess the event. If we need to pay you, we’ll collect information such as your bank account number.
  • Information we automatically collect from you such as your calls to us, notes of discussions and meetings, emails, and interactions through our website and social media accounts. If you visit our site at 240 Harrison Drive, Te Awamutu, you may be recorded by our onsite CCTV security cameras that operate 24 hours a day with data stored for about 30 days (or longer, if part of an investigation).
  • Publicly available information such as details from LINZ and the Companies Office website, results of online searches, media reports, council records and archives.

How we collect your personal information.

We collect personal information directly from you whenever you interact with us.

We may also collect personal information about you from others where we consider it appropriate or necessary to do so, such as our contractors and suppliers, your electricity retailer(s), your service providers e.g., lawyer, surveyor, property manager, insurer.

If you choose not to provide us with your personal information, we may not be able to properly provide the assistance or services you require.

How do we use your information?

We may collect, use, hold and share your personal information for purposes connected with our businesses such as:

  • bringing electricity to your property, safely, reliably and efficiently;
  • connecting your home, business or development to our network;
  • upgrading, changing or disconnecting your connection;
  • understanding and monitoring the requirements and performance of our network;
  • informing you of planned outages and to keep you updated;
  • responding to interruptions in your supply or unplanned outages;
  • planning and arranging works on our network;
  • updating and maintaining our customer records;
  • contacting you (including in an emergency);
  • answering your questions and queries;
  • responding to claims, complaints or disputes that involve you;
  • keeping our network, our people and the public safe;
  • meeting our internal and external reporting requirements and obligations;
  • calculating, allocating and distributing any lines discounts, rebates or other distributions;
  • running and improving our website and social media engagement;
  • for any other purpose that you give your consent to; and
  • to comply with our legal, government and regulatory obligations.

In some cases, we may remove personal identifiers from your personal information and maintain it in an aggregate form. We may combine this information with other information that we hold to produce anonymous, aggregated statistical information, which is helpful to us in improving our business activities and/or customer service levels to you. Once your personal information is anonymised, it may no longer be capable of identifying, or being re-linked, to you.

Sharing with third parties.

From time to time, personal information will be shared with third parties. You authorise us to disclose your information to:

  • Our related entities to use for the same purposes as us;
  • Someone else that pays your bill, such as your landlord;
  • Anyone who hosts or maintains data centres, service platforms, cloud based solutions and other infrastructure and systems for or on behalf of us and our Group companies, where your information is processed, hosted or stored;
  • Service providers who undertake services on behalf of Waipa Networks;
  • Electricity market participants to allow for the proper function of the market registry, pricing, reconciliation and billing processes;
  • Credit reference agencies and debt collection agencies (as outlined in the terms and conditions of application for credit and debt); or
  • Any other person as authorised by you.

However, your personal information may be disclosed without your consent as permitted under the Act including for the following reasons:

  • to prevent a serious and imminent threat to public health or public safety;
  • with a court, tribunal or authority in the course of proceedings or investigations;
  • with legal and regulatory authorities, and to others who we are permitted or required by law or regulation to share it with; and
  • to report a cyber incident or for cybersecurity purposes (including to prevent unauthorised access to, or attacks on, our systems).

Who has access to your personal information.

We will take reasonable steps to protect your personal information we collect, use or disclose, with access restricted to Waipa Networks personnel and approved contractors who require it to carry out their role/duties.

How we store your personal information.

We may send data to providers (in NZ or overseas) to hold or process for us e.g., cloud storage providers. The data we send may include personal information. Because the providers are our ‘agents’, the personal information is treated as being held by us (not ‘shared’ with the provider), and we’re responsible for how it’s dealt with.

We take reasonable steps to destroy personal information when we no longer need it for the reasons for which it was collected.

How we safeguard your personal information outside of New Zealand
From time to time, we may disclose, and you authorise us to disclose, your personal information to an overseas service provider for any of the purposes identified in this privacy policy. We make sure that the overseas service provider is:

  • a participant in a prescribed binding scheme for international disclosures of personal information; and/or
  • is located in a country that provides comparable safeguards to New Zealand’s privacy laws, approved by the Privacy Commissioner.

If not, then we will take reasonable steps to ensure that the overseas service provider is required to protect your personal information in a way that, overall, provides comparable safeguards to those required under New Zealand’s privacy laws. Examples of these steps include a written agreement between us and the overseas service provider or making reasonable enquiries regarding data protection standards of the country in which the overseas service provider is located.

Accessing and updating your personal information.

Under the Act you can ask to access your personal information as well as request we correct or update the personal information we hold about you.

To make a request to access or update your personal information, please send an email to: privacy@waipanetworks.co.nz or visit us at our offices at 240 Harrison Drive, Te Awamutu and we will explain the process.  If there is a valid reason why we can’t meet your request, we’ll give you an explanation.

In some cases, there may be a fee associated with providing copies of your personal information to you. If so, we will advise you of this prior to sending your information to you.

Cookies and internet use

We make every effort to maintain the security of our internet connections, however, for reasons outside of our control, security risks may still arise. Any personal information transmitted to us or from our online products or services will therefore be at your own risk.

Like many websites, we use cookies and similar technologies to collect additional website usage data and to operate our services. Cookies are not required for many parts of our services. Although most web browsers automatically accept cookies, many browsers’ settings can be set to decline cookies or alert you when a website is attempting to place a cookie on your computer. However, some of our services may not function properly if you disable cookies.

When your browser or device allows it, we use both session cookies and persistent cookies to better understand how you interact with our services, to monitor aggregate usage patterns, and to personalise and otherwise operate our services such as remembering your language preferences.

Updating our Privacy Policy

We will regularly review this privacy policy to ensure its accuracy and relevance and will inform you of any changes in the policy by updating the policy on our website.  Any changes made will take effect from the date in which it was published on the website.