We collect personal information from you, including but not limited to your:
- name
- contact information
- date of birth
- location
- employment situation
- information about the issue you tell us about
- Information about your interactions, communications and correspondence with us
- Feedback and complaints you provide to us about our service
We sometimes collect or receive information from a third party such as a referring agency, family/whānau or friend.
We collect your personal information in order to:
- understand your situation and needs to provide the most effective service possible
- providing you with information and connecting you with other services with your agreement
- communicate with your or your family/whānau
- register you for upcoming events you wish to attend
- provide information and updates about RST including events and services • for improvement and development of our services
- meet our internal and external reporting requirements including to funding agencies using only anonymised information.
- any other purposes authorised by your or that are notified to you at the time of collection
You can choose not to provide information to us. If you don’t want to give us any information about yourself or provide only limited information, we will give you the best service we can using the information you provide.
RST will use the collected personal information for the purpose it was collected unless:
- Permitted by the Privacy Act 2020;
- If directed by a Court of law;
- The individual concerned has been notified and has consented to the other use of the information;
- It is necessary to use the information for another purpose in order to prevent or minimise a serious and imminent threat to life or health of an individual and/or;
- The purpose for which the information was collected is directly related to another purpose
We keep your personal information safe by storing it in RST systems and databases which can only be accessed by authorised staff. The information contained in these systems is strictly confidential and must not be accessed unless there is a legitimate purpose. RST employees and contractors are obliged to respect the confidentiality of any personal and/or sensitive information held.
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’d like to ask for a copy of your information, or to have it corrected, please contact us at national@ruralsupport.org.nz, or phone 0800 787 254 and speak to your local Regional Trust. If we are unable to provide the information, we will provide the reasons why we are unable to release the information.
We keep personal information for no longer than reasonably necessary to fulfill the purpose that it was collected for. A request may be made to delete personal and/or sensitive information, and all reasonable steps to delete the information will be made, except where it is required for legal reasons.
If you would like to make a privacy related complaint, please contact our privacy officer on 0800 787 254 or e-mail national@ruralsupport.org.nz. If you are not satisfied with RST’s response you can refer your complaint to the Privacy Commissioner, their details are available on their website www.privacy.org.nz
We may update this privacy statement from time to time to reflect changes to privacy law or our operations. This privacy statement was last updated in January 2024.