PRIVACY POLICY

We understand that your privacy is important to you. It’s important to us too. We want to be open with you about the personal information that we collect, hold, use and share to run our business and provide our products and services to you. The information in this privacy notice explains how we do this.

In this privacy notice, ‘Forever Forests’, ‘we’, ‘us’ and ‘our’ means Forever Forests Limited and its related companies (as defined in the Companies Act 1993).

Where this privacy notice refers to the Privacy Act, we are referring to the New Zealand Privacy Act 2020 and any codes of practice or regulations made under it.

By using or accessing any of our products or services or otherwise providing us with your personal information you are agreeing to us collecting, storing, using and disclosing your personal information in accordance with this privacy notice and the Privacy Act.

How does this privacy notice apply to you?

This privacy notice applies to all personal information that we collect through our interactions with you, whether online (through our calculators and website), over the phone, in writing, or person to person.

Some of our products or services may also have specific privacy terms that apply. In these cases, the specific terms will be included in the relevant terms and conditions for that product or service. If any specific terms and conditions are inconsistent with this privacy notice, those terms will apply to the extent of that inconsistency.

If you live overseas, you may have certain privacy rights under the laws of that country which will apply to you in addition to the rights set out in this privacy notice and the Privacy Act. Nothing in this privacy notice is intended to limit your rights in relation to personal information under any applicable local law.

Changes to this privacy notice

If we need to make changes to this privacy notice to protect the security of our systems or to comply with law, we may need to make a change immediately. In these cases, we may tell you about it after we’ve made the change.

Otherwise, we will tell you about any changes to this privacy notice at least 14 days before they come into effect. Depending on how significant the changes are, we will notify you about the changes by posting a notice on our website, and/or sending you an email. Your continued use of our products or services following the notice period will be taken as acceptance of the updated privacy notice.

What personal information do we collect?

‘Personal information’ means any information that could identify you. We generally collect personal information directly from you, but in certain circumstances, we may also collect personal information about you from third parties and publicly available sources. The amount and type of personal information we collect will depend on the product or services you have requested from us.

If you provide us with personal information about anyone else, you must have their prior consent to do so and should inform them of this privacy notice.

Information we collect from you

Confirming your identity

We collect information from you to confirm your identity when you apply for or use our products or services, apply to change products or services, ask us to do something for you, or want to act on another customer’s behalf. This may include your personal and contact details, passport, driver’s licence, birth certificate, documents to verify your address or entitlements, and biometric information.

Processing your request or assessment

To process your request or assessment for products or services, or to change your products or services, we collect information to help us determine if the product, service or change is suitable for you. This may include details about your land, valuations, property and land history or other relevant information.

Designing, delivering and operating our products and services, and running our business

To design, deliver and operate our products and services, and run our business, we collect:

  • Information you give us – this may include where you answer a question we ask you, complete a form, or give us information as part of a survey or competition.

  • Information about our interactions with you – this may include how you access and use our services, any recordings we make of your interactions online (on our website, and on social media).

When you use our website and social media channels, we also collect information about you which may include the IP address, location data, browser and operating system of the device you’re using, and information from your social media profiles. You can find out more about using our online channels and how we use cookies and other technology in section 5.

You can choose not to provide us with your personal information

If you choose not to provide personal information to us, we may be unable to:

  • Confirm your identity.

  • Offer you products or services.

  • Effectively manage your products or services.

  • Help you with your queries or requests.

  • Continue your relationship with us.

Information we collect about you from others

Processing your request or assessment

To process your request or assessment for products or services, or to change or update your products or services, we may collect information from third parties such as surveyors, valuers, your legal advisers, government agencies or any other relevant organisation.

Telling you about our products and services

We work with third parties to offer you products and services. This may include third parties introducing you to us, such as carbon exchange companies, sustainability organisations, landowners or farmers, businesses who’ve used our services and any other related companies.

Running our business

We work with third parties to run our business effectively, and comply with laws. Some of the third parties that may provide us with personal information about you for these purposes include government and regulatory bodies and advisers and consultants. In situations where we may need to contact you to comply with our regulatory and legal requirements, and the information we currently hold about you is outdated, incomplete or incorrect, we may collect (and/or verify) your most recent contact. We may also work with other third parties to access personal information about you if we need to contact you in an emergency.

Information we collect about you that is publicly available

We may also collect information about you that is publicly available. This may include information on public or government registers, news articles or social media.

How do we use your personal information and who do we share it with?

We use your personal information and may share it with others for the purposes set out below and otherwise as permitted or required by law.

Processing your request or assessment

We use your information to help us determine if a product or service you’re applying for is suitable for you, for whether you meet the eligibility requirements for a product or service, to meet our legal obligations and anything else we may need to do to process your application and decide if we will offer you the product or service. This may include disclosing your information to third parties to confirm details you have given to us as part of your application.


Designing, delivering and operating our products and services

We use your information to:

  • Operate, deliver and manage our products and services.

  • Suggest better ways to use our products and services.

  • Create, develop and improve our products and services.

  • Recover money owed to us.

To achieve these things, we may share your information with:

  • Organisations we may assign or transfer our rights or obligations to.

  • Other organisations who help us interact with you online.

  • People and organisations who help us develop new products and services or features of those products and services.

  • Organisations who help us recover money owed to us.

  • Third party product providers whose products we may advise you on.

  • Entities who may refer you to us in relation to our products and services.

Marketing purposes

We use your information to tell you about products and services that we think may be of interest to you and to personalise and enhance your customer experience. To achieve these things, we may share your information with marketing specialists such as market researchers, marketing agencies, and social media and customer experience specialists. We may also share your information with other organisations that we partner with to enable them to notify you about their products and services.

You can choose to not receive marketing communications from us

You can let us know if you’d like us to stop sending you marketing materials or research surveys by clicking the ‘unsubscribe’ links in any marketing email or by contacting us at the details below in section 7. If you opt out of receiving marketing material, we will still need to send you operational communications about your products and services.

Running our business

We use your information to:

  • Run our business effectively – including keeping accurate business records, creating business plans and management reports, building systems and processes, training our staff and managing our risks.

  • Comply with regulatory and legal requirements.

We may share information with our external advisers and consultants for the above purposes, which may include lawyers, accountants, auditors, government agencies, regulators, and organisations who help us build systems and processes.

Other parties we work with

We also share information with others when you ask us to or agree to us doing so. These third parties include those who can confirm or verify information you’ve given us or provide us with information on your behalf.

We also share and combine information with our related companies to better understand your needs and to comply with our internal reporting and management processes.

Disclosures to overseas parties

If we disclose personal information to a third party outside New Zealand, we will take reasonable steps to ensure that the third party is subject to privacy laws that, overall, provide comparable safeguards to those under the Privacy Act, or is otherwise required to protect personal information in a way that, overall, provides comparable safeguards to those under the Privacy Act.

How do we keep your personal information safe?

We value the trust you put in us when you give us your personal information.

How we keep your personal information secure

We take reasonable steps to keep your personal information secure, including by implementing reasonable IT system security measures, and staff training. We also require our third-party service providers (who hold personal information on our behalf) to ensure that they have reasonable security measures in place to protect the personal information in their possession or control, including our cloud-based storage providers who store data in New Zealand and overseas.

How long we keep your personal information for

We do not keep personal information for longer than is required for the purposes for which it can be lawfully used. We’re required to hold personal information for specified periods of time under the Common Reporting Standards, the Companies Act 1993, the Financial Transactions Reporting Act 1996, the Tax Administration Act 1994 and other New Zealand and international laws.

Cookies and third-party links

Links to third-party websites

Our website and applications may have links or references to third-party websites or material. This privacy notice does not apply to those websites, and any information collected by such third parties is governed by that third party’s privacy practices or policies. We accept no responsibility or liability for the content or privacy practices of any third-party websites or applications.

Cookies

We want our advertising and information on our websites and related services to be relevant and interesting.

To improve our website, we may use patterns and other meaningful information gathered from web analytics tools. This may include traffic to, internet protocol address, from and within our website, your mouse click activity, and other information that you voluntarily enter into the website(s). Also log information like device event information such as crashes, system activity, device information, location, browser type, browser language, the date and time of your request and referral URL. Any information we collect from or share with third parties for this purpose is generally aggregated.

Our website(s) may use third-party cookies from Hotjar and Google Analytics for Display Advertisers. This includes features which give us insight into behavioural information relating to visitor age, gender and interests on an anonymous and aggregate level, and who has viewed our advertising on other websites. In addition, this helps us to understand browsing behaviour to provide a better user experience. To do this, our website and those of authorised third parties place a cookie on your computer or device or use pixels. A “cookie” or “pixel” is a very small file which allows website and application use to be tracked.

By enabling cookies on your browser, you can enjoy all the features of our services; however, you can delete cookies at any time, or turn them off in your browser. Refer to your browser help menu or device settings for information on how to do this. You can access Google’s Privacy policy at https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en and Hotjar’s privacy policy at https:// www.hotjar.com/legal/policies/ privacy/. You do not need to accept cookies to use our services. You can opt-out of GoogleAnalytics Advertising Features at https://policies.google.com/technologies/ads or use a browser plugin to opt-out of Google Analytics cookies at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout/. You can opt-out of Hotjar’s storing of data about your usage of our site by following this opt-out link https://www.hotjar.com/legal/policies/do-not-track/.

Accessing, updating and correcting your personal information

You can access, update, and correct your personal information:

Requests to access your personal information

You can also request access to, and correction of, your personal information by contacting us at the details below in section 7. We will need to confirm your identity before we can give you any personal information.

We usually don’t charge for these requests. However, if the information is difficult to find or put together, we may charge you a reasonable fee, but we’ll let you know in advance how much it is likely to cost so you can choose whether you want to go ahead.

We will usually respond to your request within 20 working days. In some cases, we may have justifiable grounds under the Privacy Act for refusing to give you access to or correct some or all the information you have requested. If we do this, we’ll explain the reasons for our decision. If we are not willing to comply with your request to correct certain information, you can ask us to attach a statement of the correction to your personal information.

How to get in touch with us

If you have any questions or wish to make an access request, please contact us:

Email: hello@foreverforests.co.nz

If you are concerned about your privacy and want to make a complaint, please contact us at:

Email: hello@foreverforests.co.nz

Website: www.foreverforests.co.nz/contact

Escalating your complaint

If you’re not satisfied with how we’ve handled your query or complaint after you’ve been through our internal process, you may wish to contact one of these independent dispute resolution services:

You can contact the Office of the Privacy Commissioner:

Online: privacy.org.nz

Email: enquiries@privacy.org.nz

Phone: 0800 803 909 (from New Zealand) or +64 (0)4 474 7590 (from overseas)

Last updated: June 2022