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Privacy Policy

Last updated September 2021

We respect your right to privacy. We are committed to protecting your privacy when you visit our site or contact us in any way.

Your rights and how to contact us

You have the right to find out from us whether we hold personal information about you, 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 we have a good reason for refusing a request for correction, you are entitled to request that a statement be attached to the information of the correction that was sought but not made. You are welcome to contact us at any time to access or update your personal information or raise any other concern about ASA activity at asa@asa.co.nz at 0800 234 357 or at Privacy Officer, PO Box 10675,  Wellington 6140.

Personal Information

We collect personal information when you choose to interact with us, including when you:

  • email an enquiry to us
  • make a complaint
  • report an influencer ad identification breach
  • subscribe to our decisions release or email newsletters
  • make a submission on a proposed new or changed code, or other public consultation
  • use the AdHelp service
  • book an event or register for training

We collect the following types of personal information:

  • Name and contact details
  • Organisation details if complaining on behalf
  • Contents of complaints and enquiries
  • Other correspondence and information provided as part of assessing a complaint or enquiry
  • Your personal opinions and feedback from satisfaction surveys, except when these are anonymous.

We will only use or share your personal information provided in the context of a complaint or an enquiry for the specific purposes of:

  • Processing your complaint or enquiry
  • Review and improvement of our services (including satisfaction surveys)
  • Conducting internal analysis and reporting
  • Complying with any legal obligations
  • As outlined below under “storage and security”

We will deal with your personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act 2020 and this privacy policy. You have the right to view and correct any personal information we hold about you at any time. We will not sell, rent or otherwise disclose your personal information to third parties except for the purposes set out above.

You do not have to provide your personal information to us. However, if you choose not to provide us with the information we need, this may impact our ability to carry out our functions, such as processing your complaint or assisting with your enquiry.

When you visit our website, some general user information is collected automatically (such as user internet address, search terms used, webpages accessed and date/time of website visit).  We use this information, in an aggregated form that does not identify you personally, to help us understand user requirements and monitor our website performance.  It is collected using cookies (small text files created by the website and stored in the user’s computer to facilitate tracking of site usage).   You can disable cookies using the settings on your browser, disabling cookies will not affect your ability to use this website, however this may impact website performance

Storage and security

We protect your data with all reasonable technical and process controls and retain personal information in compliance with the requirements of the Privacy Act 2020.

Hard copy personal information is stored securely at the ASA office.

We use some third-party service providers to host electronic data, for example information technology and database service providers. These parties may, while providing their services, have access to your personal information.

Third party service providers we use include:

  • Microsoft Office 365 applications
  • WordPress: Our website is hosted on WordPress and managed by Maker Design. To view the WordPress privacy policy, click here.
  • MailChimp: We use MailChimp to send our newsletters, decisions releases and media releases. MailChimp’s privacy policy can be viewed here.
  • Assura Software: We use Assura to host our complaints database. The Assura privacy policy is available
  • Eventbrite: We use Eventbrite for some ASA event bookings and registrations. The Eventbrite privacy policy is available here.
  • Social media platforms: We use LinkedIn and Facebook to promote our services. Interactions with us on social media platforms are stored with those platforms and will be subject to the platform specific privacy policies.
  • SurveyMonkey: We use SurveyMonkey to conduct satisfaction surveys to gain feedback on our process and services. We disclose your name and email address to SurveyMonkey to conduct the survey. The responses you provide to the survey are anonymous and we only receive aggregate, statistical information. To find out more, see the SurveyMonkey privacy policy.

Your Privacy When Making an Enquiry

We collect the personal details you provide when you make an enquiry to the ASA.  From time to time we may need to ask you for additional personal details to adequately respond to your enquiry.  Your personal details are only used for responding to the enquiry and are kept secure by the ASA.

Your Privacy When Making a Complaint

We collect contact details from complainants to process their complaints. This information is collected to enable the ASA to consider, assess and progress a complaint. The personal information collected enables the ASA to validate the complaint’s authenticity and to correspond with complainants throughout the complaints process. Any hard copies of contact details are stored securely at the ASA office. This personal information may also be shared with our third-party service providers as listed above.

The Advertising Standards Complaints Board does not accept anonymous complaints. If a complainant fails to provide valid contact details, the complaint is not sufficient to trigger the formal complaint process and the ASA is not obliged to accept the complaint. A complainant’s personal information will not be released to the advertiser or to any other party to the complaint without the complainant’s permission.  Members of the Complaints Board and Appeal Board are obliged to keep complaint-related information (including complainants’ personal information) confidential and secure. The complainants name and other personal information will not be published in the Decision.

When a complaint is made on behalf of an organisation, the organisation’s name will be included in the complaint to the advertiser and will be recorded in the decision.

From time to time, the ASA may request additional personal information from the complainant, for example, to better understand the complaint or to determine whether a complainant is a competitor.  Parties to the complaint will be advised as appropriate.

Parties to a complaint are requested to address all correspondence relating to the complaint to the ASA.

See Competitor Complaints to understand how complainants’ personal information is used in this process.

Your Privacy When Signing Up to Our Newsletter and Decisions Email Lists

Anyone can sign up to receive our newsletters and decisions emails. We collect your email address, first name and last name. You can choose to remove yourself from email communications by following the “unsubscribe” prompt at the bottom of each email. We use a third-party provider (MailChimp) for these emails and any personal information you provide (e.g. your email address) will be securely stored by MailChimp. MailChimp’s privacy policy can be viewed here.

Your Privacy When Making a Submission

If you make a submission on a proposed new or changed code, or other public consultation, the ASA will request personal information from you including your name, address and the organisation you work for (if relevant).  The ASA will not publish this information publicly unless we have obtained consent from you to do so.

Your Privacy When Accessing AdHelp Information Service

In order to process your request to use the AdHelp Information Service we collect your name, email address, phone number and name of the organisation you work for, along with any information you choose to provide to us relating to your enquiry.

Your Privacy When Booking An ASA Event

If you book to attend one of our events, the ASA will collect information to inform you about the event, including times, content, billing details and venue. Some ASA events are managed using a third-party provider, Eventbrite. The Eventbrite privacy policy is available here.

Links to social networking services

We use social networking services such as LinkedIn and Facebook to communicate with the public about our work. When you communicate with us using these services, the social networking service may collect your personal information for its own purposes.

These services have their own privacy policies which are independent of ours.

Links to other websites

Our website provides links to other websites when we consider you may be interested in the content of those sites. We do not endorse any third-party sites or their content and we have no control over the conduct of the companies or organisations operating those sites.

For more information on privacy see the Privacy Commissioner’s website.