Privacy statement

The personal information we may collect includes: 

• Your name and contact details (such as an email address or phone number); 
• Your postal and property addresses; 
• Email communications, and your written and verbal interactions with us; 
• Phone conversations with our Customer Hub staff 
• Limited details of any medical problems that mean you depend on water supply; 
• Land use or business activity if you are consented by a local authority as an individual. 

If you do not provide us with the personal information we may request from you, we may be unable to provide you with all or some of our services, provide you with the information you seek, or process your employment or contracting application if you are applying for a role with us. 

Directly from you 

Wellington Water collects personal information directly from you when you interact with us over the phone, through email or letter, when you meet with our staff, or use our services. We may collect personal information when you: 

• apply for employment with us; 
• interact with us via social media (such as Facebook, X - formally Twitter, LinkedIn etc.); 
• subscribe to any of our newsletters or update services; 
• use any of our services; 
• complete and submit forms we provide for applications for consents, licences, approvals, permits or other authorisations, or for the use of any of our services or facilities, including signing up for and using our online services and applications; 
• prepare and submit a written submission, request, or other feedback in relation to applications for consents, licences, approvals, permits, or other authorisations, or in relation to any form of draft or proposed plan, policy, bylaw, or other document. 

We may monitor and record phone calls made to us or by us for quality control and staff training purposes. If a call is to be monitored and recorded, you will be informed at the time of the call. 

Collection from other organisations 

We may collect personal information about you indirectly from publicly available sources and from other organisations, entities, and persons, such as: 

• Our client councils (Wellington City Council, Hutt City Council, Upper Hutt City Council, Porirua City Council, South Wairarapa District Council, Greater Wellington District Council). 
• Land Information New Zealand 
• Health New Zealand (Te Whatu Ora) 
• Quotable Value (QV) 
• Other third parties you authorise us to make contact with about you, or who you authorise to provide information about you to us 

We may also collect information about you indirectly through your use of our Website and the services and functionality offered through it (including through the use of cookies or similar tracking technologies). 

We may use your personal information that we hold about you: 

• to provide you with services that you have requested; 
• to respond to your requests, enquiries, feedback, or to provide you with information that you have requested; 
• to provide you information about our services that may be of interest to you; 
• to comply with relevant laws and regulations; 
• through participation, to assist us in analysing and improving our products and services; 
• to provide ‘aggregated’ statistical information to regulators and reputable third parties (this information will not allow anyone to be personally identified); or 
• for any other specific purpose which we either notify you of at the time your personal information is collected, or seek your permission directly at a later date. 

We may disclose personal information about you to: 

• other organisations engaged by Wellington Water to provide products or services to you on our behalf, where your personal information is necessary for the provision of those products or services; 
• a third party if we are required to do so under any laws or regulations, or in the course of legal proceedings or other investigations; 
• any person, if that information is already publicly available (and accessible by anyone); or 
• any person or organisation you authorise us to disclose your personal information to. 

We will take all reasonable steps to ensure your personal information is: 

• protected against loss, damage, misuse, and unauthorised access.  
• accurate, up to date, complete and relevant. 

We may retain all personal information that we collect (on both our active systems and our archive systems), for as long as administratively necessary, in accordance with Wellington Water’s Information Retention and Disposal schedule.

We are required under New Zealand law to retain information in accordance with the Public Records Act 2005.  

Making a request 

You have the right to access any personal information we hold about you, or to ask for it to be corrected if you think it is wrong (in alignment with the Privacy Act 2020 if you are an individual, or under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987 if you are a company or other corporate entity). 

You may make the following requests (via official.information@wellingtonwater.co.nz) in relation to the personal information we hold about you: 

• confirmation as to whether we hold personal information about you 
• access to personal information about you 
• correction of personal information we hold about you 

Note, if your request is about personal information held by another organisation, your request may be transferred to that organisation. We will notify you of this before it is transferred. 

Verifying your identity 

Before supplying or correcting personal information, we will verify your identity either via a previous interaction you have had with Wellington Water, or by requesting a form of identification (e.g. drivers licence) from you. Any personal information obtained for this purpose will not be retained. If we cannot verify your identity, your request will be refused. 

Confirming and responding to your request 

Once we have verified your identity, we will make a decision about your request within 20 working days (as required by Privacy Act 2020) and, if accepted, let you know when the request will be processed and sent to you by. 

Declining requests 

Wellington Water will endeavour to provide you with access to your personal information where it can be readily retrieved, unless there is good reason (in accordance with Privacy Act 2020) for not doing so, including where such a disclosure would breach someone else’s rights to privacy, confidentiality obligations and / or the law. 

If Wellington Water has a good reason for refusing a request for correcting your personal information, you are entitled to request that a statement (called a Statement of Correction written by you) is attached to the information that a correction was sought but not made.