Privacy Statement

Waikato District Council respects the privacy of individuals and is committed to complying with the Privacy Act 2020 in respect of the personal information we hold.

This Privacy Statement describes how Waikato District Council collects and uses your personal information collected through the 'Shape Waikato' website.

Waikato District Council collects your data as part of providing its online community engagement services, informing you about these services, complying with contractual and other legal obligations, responding to your enquiries and administrating its community engagement technology.

The information we collect about you includes:

User feedback

We collect comments, votes, posts and selections you contribute when interacting with the feedback mechanisms provided through 'Shape Waikato' which include:

forums
interactivemaps
surveys
quick polls

This information is analysed by Waikato District Council staff and third party contractors who have been engaged to assist in the analysis of data collected to inform the creation of better projects, plans and policies.

Can you remain anonymous or withhold personal information?

Yes. You can access and participate in select 'Shape Waikato' engagements anonymously, without disclosing any personal information. Some identified engagements may require you to register and establish an account in order to participate.Users may choose to adopt a pseudonym for these engagements.

Registered Users

When you register for a 'Shape Waikato' account or sign-in to your existing account, the information we collect includes:

username (this is published on the site alongside any public comments you make)
email address (this will not be made public)
age group
gender
the area in which you live
sign-up date
last login date
last contribution
number of contributions

For engagements where you do not register for a 'Shape Waikato' account, we may seek to collect from you:

username (this is published on the site alongside any public comments you make)
email address (this will not be made public)
age group
gender

Demographic details are requested in order to help us determine the degree to which views of participants are representative of a diverse cross-section of the community.

By providing an e-mail address you help us protect the integrity of the discussion from individuals and groups who may attempt to unduly influence the outcome of the consultation process anonymously. For example, we check to ensure each user has a single email account on site.We also frequently review the site for trolls and spammers.

If you are registered and signed-in to your user account, the contributions and feedback you provide may be linked with your username and any demographic details you have recorded in your account.

Council may use information collected in order to:

allow you to access the site
respond to your enquiries
assist Council's decision making process
improve Council's public engagement
detect and rectify fraud or other behaviour that violates any terms of use
lodge service requests with Social Pinpoint
comply with our contractual or legal obligations and resolve any disputes that we may have
monitor sites to ensure adequate safety and security
conduct de-identified research, analytics and business development
improve our site
if other required or authorised by law.

Personal information may also be collected and accessed by Social Pinpoint to internally analyse and improve their software. Please refer to Social Pinpoint's Privacy Policy for more information.

Only Council and its members, employees and agents will use personal information collected on Shape Waikato unless the law authorises or requires otherwise.

Email notifications

If you subscribe to receive notifications about upcoming consultations and other engagement activities, the email address you provided will be used by Waikato District Council to send you information and updates about new opportunities for you to have your say.You can unsubscribe from these notifications at any time.

Site visit data

The Site’s web-server automatically collects the following de-identified data for statistic and system administration purposes only:

your server (or IP) address
the day and time you visited our site
the pages you visited on our site
the address of the last page you visited
the operating system you are using
rough geographic location (down to the city)
language
internet service provider
the type of browser and version you are using

To the extent that this data could make you identifiable, Waikato District Council and Social Pinpoint will not attempt to identify individuals from records the server automatically generates unless necessary to investigate a breach of law or regulation.

When you sign up for and use the ‘Shape Waikato' service you provide two types of information:

information that is publicly available; and
information that is available to Waikato District Council and Social Pinpoint in its capacity as Waikato District Councils contracted service provider.

Publicly available information

Publicly available information is limited to your username and any comments you leave under that username in the forums or other feedback tools published to ‘Shape Waikato’.

You can use your first name or an anonymous username if you do not want your full name attached to forum and guestbook comments, stories or questions.

Feedback (including overall results of polls and surveys, and in some instances, quotes from forums and surveys) may be published in publicly available reports at the end of the consultation period.

Submissions made to Waikato District Council pursuant to the Local Government Act 2002 (submissions on annual plans, long term plans) are public documents. Names or usernames on submissions will be included in reports to Council.

Storage of personal information

Information entered into 'Shape Waikato' will be held in a server located in Sydney Australia and will also be downloaded into the Waikato District Council systems.

Disclosure of personal information

Waikato District Council will take all reasonable measures to prevent unauthorised access to, or unlawful disclosure of, your personal information.

Access and correction

You may seek access to your personal information that Waikato District Council holds.

You may also seek corrections to your personal information that Waikato District Council has collected if you believe it is inaccurate, out-of–date, incomplete, irrelevant or misleading.Waikato District Council is required to take reasonable steps to correct personal information to ensure that, having regard to the purpose for which it is held, the information is not inaccurate, out-of–date, incomplete, irrelevant or misleading.

Links

This ‘Shape Waikato’ Privacy Statement does not apply to third party websites or digital services which may be linked to from content published to 'Shape Waikato'. We recommend you read the privacy statement of the relevant service when you access these sites.

Contact

If you wish to access or correct your personal information please contact consult@waidc.govt.nz

Definitions:

Personal Information means information about an identifiable individual.

This site is owned and operated by Waikato District Council using software licensed from Social Pinpoint. For details of how Social Pinpoint may access personal information, please refer to Social Pinpoint’s Privacy Policy.

This 'Shape Waikato' website is owned and operated by Waikato District Council using software licensed from Social Pinpoint.
Intellectual Property: You own the intellectual property rights in the data/information that you enter, contribute or upload to 'Shape Waikato' (the Data) and you are solely responsible for the legality, reliability, integrity, accuracy and quality of your Data. You grant to Waikato District Council the non-exclusive right to use your Data for its business purposes and in accordance with its Privacy Statement.
Official information: Waikato District Council is a local authority and subject to the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987 (LGOIMA) and therefore any information it holds is official information which includes the Data you enter, contribute or upload to 'Shape Waikato'. Official information is publically available unless there are grounds under LGOIMA to withhold the information.
Monitoring: Any Data that you enter into 'Shape Waikato' is monitored and screened. Any content that violates or potentially violates the Moderation Rules (outlined below) will be edited or removed at Waikato District Council’s sole discretion.
Moderation Rules:
- Content may not contain personal attacks on other participants, staff or public figures;
- Content may not intentionally or inadvertently disclose sensitive personal and/or confidential information about any other participants, staff or public figures;
- Content may not contain discriminatory language relating to gender, race, religion, culture, sexual preference, appearance or background of a person;
- Content may not contain language perceived as threatening, inciting violence or encouraging, endorsing, approving or recommending the performance of dangerous of illegal acts;
- Content may not contain language perceived as offensive including profanity;
- Content is considered duplicate as it appears multiple times in a perceivably inappropriate way;
- Content is considered off-topic or SPAM;
- Content contains links to any advertising or illegal material; and
- Image content is considered graphic as it contains portrayals of (for example) acts of violence, hate speech, terrorism, pornography, racism and self-harm.
No Liability: Your use of 'Shape Waikato' is at your own risk. Waikato District Council is not liable to you for any losses or damages that arise directly or indirectly from your use of 'Shape Waikato'.

Updates: Waikato District Council reserves the right to update these Terms of Use from time to time. You can view these Terms of Use and our Privacy Statement at any time when you are logged into 'Shape Waikato'. Your continued use of 'Shape Waikato' will be deemed acceptance of these updated terms.

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