Data Privacy
Data Protection and Use Policy
This Data Protection and Use Policy explains how the agencies that power the tradebarriers.govt.nz website, collect, store, use and share your information (including personal information).
Openness and transparency are important to us. We – like all New Zealand agencies – are required to tell you certain things about the information we need to carry out our functions. This is where we explain our data protection and use practices and why you can trust us to handle your information with manaakitanga (respect and care).
The following agencies may have access to your information:
• Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade
• New Zealand Trade and Enterprise
• New Zealand Customs Service
• Education New Zealand
• Ministry for Primary Industries
• Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment
Portal Use
This section explains how we collect, use and share information when we are engaging with the public and with agencies, including managing our Export Support Desk portal.
Effectively engaging with you, including to support you if you have an issue in offshore markets, requires us to collect some information from you.
Our main point of collection is the Export Support Desk portal on this website.
This requires us to collect the following from you:
• Name;
• Email Address;
• Company Name; and
• A description of your issue or query.
What we do with your information
How we use it
To the extent possible we will treat your information with confidentiality in mind. To that end we will only use the information you provide to us for the purposes of assisting you as you have requested i.e. to help you to resolve issues you may be having in offshore markets.
We may use your information to:
• contact you about your request or query
• consider, resolve and/or respond to your enquiry
• improve our website and the delivery of our online services
• conduct internal statistical analysis and meet our reporting requirements
When we share it
We may share your information in the following circumstances:
• If necessary to appropriately respond to your enquiry, this may include sharing with Ministers, other New Zealand government agencies or partner government agencies offshore
• We may make your information in response to requests under the Official Information Act 1982
• We may share information if required by law (for example to assist with the investigation of a criminal offence)
• We will also share your personal information with the Office of the Privacy Commission in the event of a notifiable breach of your privacy
Storage and security
We use third party providers to store and process our data.
We store most of the information we collect and generate electronically on secure servers in data centres in New Zealand, in our premises and in Microsoft Azure cloud servers located in overseas jurisdictions. This means that the personal information we hold may be transferred to, or accessed from, countries other than New Zealand.
We retain personal information in compliance with the requirements of the Public Records Act 2005.
Your privacy rights and how to contact us
The Privacy Act gives you rights to request access to and correction of the personal information we hold about you. You can take steps to control the ways we use your information. You can also complain to us or the Office of the Privacy Commissioner at any time if you think we have misused your personal information.
Contact us to exercise any of these rights, including the right to complain about our privacy practices. Remember that you can make an information request to us in any form.
Contact us
Requesting access to or correction of your information
You have the right to request a copy of the personal information we hold about you (whether we have collected from you directly or from a third party). You also have the right to ask us to correct your information if you think it is wrong.
We will process your request as soon as possible, and no later than 20 working days after we receive it.
We may also occasionally need to withhold personal information under sections 49-55 of the Privacy Act 2020, for example where the information requested is legally privileged. However, we will only ever withhold information where necessary to do so.
Complaining about our privacy practices
We want to know if you have concerns about our privacy practices, whether these relate to the way we collect or share information about you or our decision on your access request. This allows us to try and put things right for you and helps us to identify and fix any problems with our systems or processes.
In the first instance, let us know about your concerns and we will try our best to resolve it. This could include escalating your concerns to a senior staff member to ensure we have made the right decision and fully considered your concerns.
Contact us
If we cannot resolve your concerns, then you have the right to complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner about our actions:
Phone: 0800 803 909 (Monday to Friday, 10:00 to 15:00)
By email: enquiries@privacy.org.nz(external link)
For more information about the complaints process visit the Office of the Privacy Commissioner’s website here(external link).
Our cookie policy
Use of cookies by MFAT We may use web cookies to temporarily store information to enhance your browsing experience and helps us improve our website.
Cookies are small text files on your computer’s hard drive to collect information about your use of our website. Cookies do not collect identifiable information about you.
You can disable and enable cookies at any time and can continue to view our website. But if you disable a cookie, you will not be able to subscribe to our updates, publications and alerts, fill out a feedback or enquiry form, and will have a reduced online experience.
To disable all cookies
Most web browsers will allow you to set some control over cookies in your browser settings. This includes deleting them from your browser or disabling them altogether.
If you do choose to set your browser to disable all cookies, this may affect your ability to use some of the features on our site.
To learn more about cookies and how you can manage them in your web browser, visit:
To enable or disable a cookie:
• Google Chrome: Settings > Show advanced settings > Privacy > Site settings
• Mozilla Firefox: Options > Privacy > History (use custom settings)• Safari: Edit > Preferences > Privacy
• Internet Explore: Tools > Internet options > Privacy