Privacy statement for the Telephone/Video Interpreting Service

Purpose and scope

MBIE contract Connecting Now to provide the Telephone/Video Interpreting Service (TIS/VIS) for government agencies.

The purpose of this privacy statement is to let TIS/VIS clients know what will happen with their personal information when MBIE uses the TIS/VIS to communicate with them.

When an agency other than MBIE uses the TIS/VIS to communicate with you, that agency’s privacy statement applies to the information you share with them.

Collection

When MBIE uses the TIS/VIS to communicate with you, we collect personal information about you for the purposes of providing telephone/video interpreting services. The personal information is limited to that which you disclose over the phone to us or in writing, for the purpose of booking an interpreter, or when providing feedback. This information is viewable by Connecting Now staff and interpreters for the purpose of providing interpreting services.

Your personal information may also be accessed and used by Connecting Now's  and MBIE’s administrative staff, for the purpose of administering, providing quality control and evaluating the TIS/VIS. This may include biographic data which you choose to provide. If you decide not to provide biographic data, or feedback about the services you received, this will not affect your ability to use the TIS/VIS.

Call recording

As part of Connecting Now’s commitment to providing the best possible service to its clients, interpreted calls are recorded. Calls are recorded for quality assurance and training purposes, helping Connecting Now to monitor and improve the quality of the telephone/video interpreting services it provides through its interpreters. Calls are also recorded for dispute resolution purposes, so that should a dispute arise there is a record of the information being disputed.

Connecting Now and MBIE understand your personal information is important to you and are committed to protecting your privacy. As an agent of the agency with whom you are communicating through interpreters, Connecting Now stores the call recordings securely on behalf of that agency. At times agencies will also record calls themselves. Connecting Now securely stores call recordings for two years and destroys them after this period, unless otherwise required by law.

Unless Connecting Now and MBIE have lawful reasons for withholding this information, it will be made available if you request access to a recording by contacting the Privacy Officer at:

Privacy Officer
Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment
PO Box 5488
Wellington 6011

Or email: oia@mbie.govt.nz

Holding of information

Your personal information will be held by Connecting Now and in limited circumstances by MBIE. Connecting Now will take reasonable precautions to store and keep your personal information secure in accordance with the Privacy Act 2020.

Your personal information may be accessed by Connecting Now or MBIE staff or authorised third parties (including third party service providers) for the purposes contained in this privacy statement or any other lawful use.

Connecting Now and MBIE will generally only retain personal information as long as it is required for the purposes for which the information may lawfully be used. Where any information provided (which may include personal information) to, or through, the Connecting Now site or telephone interpreting services constitutes a public record, it will be retained to the extent required by the Public Records Act 2005.

Disclosure of information

Neither Connecting Now nor MBIE will generally share your personal information unless you authorise that disclosure or its use to another party to the TIS/VIS. Other parties to the TIS/VIS do have the ability to access the recorded calls for the purposes of training, quality assurance or resolving a dispute.

Your personal information may also be disclosed when disclosure is required or permitted by law. MBIE may also be required to disclose information under the Official Information Act 1982 or to a Parliamentary Select Committee or Parliament in response to a Parliamentary Question.

Your rights to access or correct personal information

You have the right to:

• find out whether Connecting Now/MBIE or any other agency using the TIS/VIS hold personal information about you;
• access that information; and, if applicable
• request corrections of that information.

If you want to check personal information being held about you, please write to

Privacy Officer
Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment
PO Box 5488
Wellington 6011

Or email: OIA@mbie.govt.nz

Please be aware, if your request is about the information retained by another agency, your request may be transferred to that agency.

If MBIE and/or any other agency in question have a good reason for refusing a request for correction, you are entitled to request that a statement is attached to the information of the correction that was sought but not made.

For more information on the privacy laws in New Zealand and contact details for the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, visit:

The Privacy Commissioner's website(external link)

Collection of statistical information and cookies

Connecting Now and MBIE’s websites use cookies. Cookies are small text files that are sent by a website and stored on your computer's hard drive to collect information about how you browse the website. Cookies are used to:

• measure how you use the website so it can be updated and improved based on your needs
• remember the notifications you’ve seen so that we don’t show them to you again

We may use cookies to gather data about trends in website usage using a tool called Google Analytics. This aggregated data shows how our websites perform and will be viewable by website administrators and certain other staff. It may also be shared with other government agencies. This information does not identify you personally.

Read Google’s privacy statement at the Google Safety Center(external link)

You can opt-out of Google Analytics by downloading and installing a browser extension provided by Google. This extension is available for the Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera, and Internet Explorer 11 browsers. Check your browser’s "Help" to find out how to do this.

You can manually disable cookies at any time. Check your browser's "Help" to find out how.

Data collected may include:

• your IP address
• the search terms you used on this site
• the pages you accessed on this site and the links you clicked on
• the date and time you visited this site
• the referring site (if any) from which you clicked to reach this site
• the device you used to access this site
• your operating system (eg, Windows 10, Mac OS X)
• the type of web browser you used to access this site (eg, Internet Explorer, Google Chrome)
• other things like your screen resolution, the release of your installed Flash version and the language setting of your browser.

Security

The Connecting Now and MBIE systems and websites have security measures in place to prevent the loss, misuse and alteration of information under its control. In order to maintain the cyber security of the Connecting Now and MBIE systems and information, these systems are subject to ongoing monitoring (including activity logging), analysis and auditing. Connecting Now and MBIE may use information about your use of its websites and other IT systems to prevent unauthorised access or attacks on these systems or to resolve such events. Connecting Now and MBIE may use this information even if you are not involved in such activity. Connecting Now and MBIE may utilise services from one or more third party suppliers to monitor or maintain the cyber security of its systems and information. These third party suppliers will have access to monitoring and logging information as well as information processed on the Connecting Now and MBIE websites and other IT systems.