Privacy Policy

The New Zealand Institute for Earth Science Limited and its subsidiaries (Earth Sciences NZ, we, us or our) take your privacy very seriously and are committed to ensuring we comply with the Privacy Act 2020 and all other relevant privacy legislation and regulatory requirements (Privacy Laws).

Scope and purpose

This privacy policy sets out the basis on which we collect and process your personal information and the personal information of our clients, contractors, suppliers, business partners, job candidates and other individuals (collectively, you or your). It does not address the personal information of our employees which we manage through a separate policy.

Collection of personal information 

We may collect personal information you provide to us, such as your name, email address, contact details, occupation, organisation/ industry, and other personal information generated through your interactions with us. This information can be obtained through a variety of sources, including: 

  • directly from you or a third party whom you have authorised to provide us with your personal information (such as when applying for a position at Earth Sciences NZ), when you request information or services from us or when we contract with you; 

  • publicly available information we may search to provide services to you or conduct due diligence, and/or 

  • via our digital channels (such as this website, any of our other ancillary websites or related web services (Website) and our various Earth Sciences NZ apps) as explained below or, in accordance with our CCTV Policy, through camera surveillance technology or CCTV when you visit one of our buildings or sites. 

Use of personal information 

We do not trade in personal information and will only process your personal information for those purposes to which you have consented (consent) or where we have a lawful reason to do so, including the following common purposes where it is necessary for us to: 

  • perform a contract which we have with you or may enter into with you (contractual necessity); 

  • execute our public good duties (public interests); 

  • comply with our legal or regulatory requirements (legal compliance); 

  • carry out our legitimate business interests (or those of a third party), such as maintaining, monitoring and analysing the security of our data and systems (including activity logging), improving and delivering our services, marketing or publicising our activities, services or products (which may involve sending you marketing communications by email and other electronic means, unless you have opted out of such marketing), preventing or investigating fraud, developing our products and services, responding to your inquiries, verifying your identity or for recruiting purposes, and where we have ensured that these business interests do not override your fundamental rights and interests (legitimate interests). 

We will only use your personal information for the purpose for which it was collected, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason aligns to the original purpose or is otherwise required or permitted by law. 

Disclosure of personal information 

We will only share your personal information with another third party to the extent necessary for the purposes listed above and in accordance with law. We take all reasonable precautions to ensure that any third-party contractor or service provider who may access your personal information on our behalf keeps your personal information secure and processes it lawfully and in accordance with our instructions.   

Management of personal information 

We treat your personal information with respect, and maintain robust information security management processes and confidentiality protocols to help ensure that it is protected against misuse, loss and unauthorised access, use, modification or disclosure. We retain the information we hold in accordance with our statutory obligations and for the period that we lawfully need to keep it: we take reasonable steps to destroy or de-identify personal information that is no longer necessary for us to keep.  

To ensure compliance with legal requirements, maintain cyber-security standards and to ensure the robust delivery of our science services, our systems are subject to ongoing monitoring, including activity logging and analysis, as well as occasional formal audit. This monitoring may be undertaken by specialist third-party providers.  

If we have given you (or if you have chosen) a password to enable access to certain Website subscription services, you are responsible for keeping this password secure and confidential. 

Any personal information provided to us is held by, or on behalf of, us at one of Earth Sciences NZ’s sites and/or by our contracted third-party service providers. We may use third-party providers located within or outside of New Zealand to manage and store the personal and other information we collect, and we ensure that any such provider has sufficient security measures in place to protect your personal information in line with Privacy Laws. 

Your rights and choices 

You have the right to ask for a copy of any readily retrievable personal information we hold about you and request correction of your personal information. You may access and request correction of that information by contacting Earth Sciences NZ. You can also ask to be removed from any of Earth Sciences NZ’s subscription lists at any time.  

Please contact us if you have any concerns relating to our handling of your personal information; however, you can also refer the matter to the Privacy Commissioner or, where appropriate, the Ombudsman. 

Website and apps 

We may collect personal and other information from you through your use of our Website (including when you subscribe to our Website services) and apps, and we do this by using “cookies”, third-party analytic services, log files and other technologies as set out in this policy.  

For example, to submit a felt report on the GeoNet app, we collect and store your location at the time of submission using your device’s GPS although this is not directly tied to any personally identifiable information. A geohash algorithm is used to derive an approximate location (up to 7-digit precision) from these coordinates which is then displayed on a public-facing map.   

Our use of any personal information gathered through the Website or our apps complies with this policy. 

Please be aware that we may need you to provide evidence of your identity should you make a request for access or correction of personal information to us. 

Cookies and analytics 

We use Google Analytics and Firebase(also provided by Google LLC) on our Website and for certain of our apps. We may collect information such as your IP address, location, browser, location, pages viewed, time spent on the Website or app and the number of times you visit using these Google services. This information may be used by or on behalf of us to analyse the popularity of certain content and better understand and track activity. For information on Google’s own use of the data collected through these services please refer to Google’s terms and privacy policies (Google and Firebase).   

Cookies are small text files that are placed on a user’s device that can collect information about how you browse the Website or use an app. We use cookies to store your preferences, record session information, analyse how the Website or apps are used and ensure that particular features work. You can disable cookies in your  browser settings and/or delete them from your device . While you do not need to have cookies turned on to use the Website or apps, some online services, features or functions may not work properly if the cookies are disabled. 

We may from time to time use different web analytic tools on our Website and/or apps for the purposes of tracking use and traffic, but if so, we will ensure that any such tool respects privacy settings and has appropriate safeguards in place to protect your personal information. 

Third party websites and social media 

The Website or our other communications to you may contain links to third-party websites and social media pages on various platforms. We may also use social networking services to communicate with you and the public about our work. If you follow any of these links or use those services, they may collect your personal information and track your web use for their own purposes. You should read their individual privacy and cookies policies before providing any personal information on those sites or using those services. 

Changes to our privacy policy 

We may make changes to this policy from time to time to ensure it aligns with how our company operates and continues to comply with Privacy Laws. Any such changes will be noted on this page, and we encourage you to visit this page regularly to check for updates.  

Published 1 July 2025 

Back to top