Privacy

About

This policy explains how and when covid19.govt.nz collects personal information, what we do with it and your right to see or change it. This website is operated by COVID-19 Communications, a business unit of Te Whatu Ora — Health New Zealand.

Purpose

The purpose of this privacy policy is to let users of covid19.govt.nz (the ‘site’) know when we collect personal information and what we do with it.

We do not use, share or transfer personal information in connection with the site except as set out in this policy, or as otherwise set out somewhere on the site including in terms linking to the site.

Collection, storage and use of personal information

You may browse and access information contained within this website — including completing user research tasks, like filling in a survey — without providing any personal information. 

If you provide information (including personal information) to us — for example, through the general enquiry form — we will only use that information to:

• administer, evaluate, improve, and secure our ICT systems, our website, and the information our website contains (ICT and website purposes)
• improve our services
• action or respond to the information provided and communicate with you (this may include sharing the information with other government organisations to enable a response or action), and
• where such disclosure is required or permitted by law.

We will keep any such information secure. We may share it with third parties to the extent necessary for the services they provide to us related to the purposes of our ICT systems and website.

We have software to track which pages are visited. This helps us identify the most popular areas of our website. The information is aggregated, and we cannot identify individual visitors.

Learn more about how we use statistical information

You have the right to 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 you would like to ask for a copy of your information or to have it corrected, or you have any concerns about the personal information that we hold, please write to:

Te Whatu Ora
PO Box 793
Wellington 6140
or send an email to info@health.govt.nz

Cookies

We may collect statistical information about your visit to our website to help us improve it.

This information does not identify individuals, and makes use of cookies. A cookie is a piece of code that creates a file on your computer to track the pages that you view on our website.

This site generates persistent session cookies for the purpose of monitoring site usage. These have an expiry date and are removed on that date. The cookies do not collect personal information. You can disable them or clear them out of your web browser without affecting your ability to use the site.

Statistical information

Google Analytics

We use Google Universal Analytics to collect and analyse details about the use of our website.

You may turn off cookies at any time. Most browsers have a feature that allows the user to refuse cookies, or issues a warning when cookies are being sent. Turning off cookies will not affect your ability to use this website.

The information Google Analytics collects includes:

• the first 3 parts of the IP address of your device
• the pages you accessed on this website and the links you clicked on
• the date and time you visited this website
• the referring site, if any, through which you clicked through to this website
• the operating system, for example, Windows 7 or Mac OSX on your device
• the type of web browser you used, for example, Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox
• other incidental information such as screen resolution and the language setting you used.

Use of statistical information

The data is collected and stored on the Google server and is viewable by authorised staff as detailed in their privacy policy. We may share this information with other government agencies.

You may choose to not have Google Analytics collect your information by disabling cookies in your browser, or by installing the Google Analytics Opt-out browser add-on.

Google Analytics Opt-out browser add-on (external link)

How Google uses data when you use their partners’ sites or apps (external link)

Hotjar

We use Hotjar's analysis tools, including heatmaps and polls, to better understand our website visitors and collect user feedback.

Hotjar uses cookies and other technologies to collect data on users’ behaviour and their devices, including:

• device IP address
• device screen size and type
• browser information
• geographic location (country only)
• preferred language used to display our website.

You can choose to not have Hotjar collect your information by visiting Hotjar's opt-out page or enabling Do Not Track (DNT) in your browser.

Opt out of Hotjar on this browser (external link)

Hotjar's privacy policy (external link)

Swiftype

We use Swiftype to collect details about what people search for on our website. It collects cookies and usage data.

Swiftype privacy statement (external link)