Protecting your own digital privacy is something many people are increasingly concerned about. RNZ wants to help our audience with that protection.  

We will collect as little information about you as possible, and only that which helps us better serve you. We will never sell your data.  

The information we do collect is used to make better decisions about how to serve New Zealanders and the people of the Pacific, under the RNZ charter. We use some of that information to report our performance

Where practically possible, we will enable opting out of any data collection.  

Digital Privacy Policy 

Terms of Use 

This digital privacy policy is to be read in conjunction with RNZ's Terms of Use
 

Introduction 

RNZ collects various kinds of information (both personal and non-personal) via the digital platforms under our control, namely the websites at rnz.co.nz and storytime.rnz.co.nz and the RNZ mobile apps for Android and iOS.  

Where RNZ content is consumed on third-party platforms such as social media platforms the data collection policies of those platforms apply. 

This page explains what information we collect, why we collect it and who we share it with. If you have any questions, there are contact details at the bottom of the page. 

RNZ does not and will not ever sell any personally identifying information to any third parties. RNZ will not share any personally identifying information, other than in accordance with this policy, or if we are required to do so by law. 
 

What is collected 

Personal information 

RNZ does not collect your personal information unless you choose to provide it. Your personal information will be collected if you: 

  • apply for a job - Personal information about job applicants is stored by Phoenix recruitment

  • participate in a survey - Survey response information is stored by SurveyMonkey.com 

  • sign up to a newsletter - Personal information about subscribers to e-newsletters is stored by MailChimp.com

  • send a formal complaint - Formal Complaints are stored by Microsoft (Office 365). Email addresses and subject lines of Formal Complaint messages that could not be delivered from the website to RNZ’s formal complaint officers are stored by Amazon Web Services so they can be followed up. 
     

Other information 

RNZ collects usage information that is not personal information (this means it cannot be used to identify you). This includes but is not limited to  

  • IP addresses (While IP addresses aren’t personal information they can, under certain circumstances, be used by law enforcement to identify you. RNZ would only disclose this information if required by law.) 

  • operating system and browser information 

  • details of any search engine used to arrive on our websites/apps 

  • the date, time and length of your interactions 

  • your geographical location (exactness is to city level) 

  • URLs of the pages/screens visited on our websites/apps, including the user ‘pathway’ from one page/screen to the next 
     

Data stored in your browser by our websites 

The online audio player on rnz.co.nz uses a cookie to keep track of the player volume, and items on users’ playlists are tracked by browser storage. 
 

Data stored on your devices by RNZ Apps 

Our apps uses storage on users’ devices to store things like the play queue and downloaded items. 

None of this data or the methods used to collect it can be used to identify any individual or to interfere with a user’s device. 

Third-party services mentioned under Storing and disclosing personal information may also store usage information on your devices/browser. 
 

Why collect information 

RNZ collects personal information in order to: 

  • Deliver services (for example, newsletter subscriptions) 

  • Provide better services (for example, by monitoring technical errors, identify popular features or content) 

  • Help with editorial decision making by looking at, for example, where stories are being read, or whether more people click on stories with different headlines. 

  • Assist in the administration of the organisation (for example, by recruiting staff) 

Job applications are not retained for longer than is strictly necessary. 

RNZ is required by its Charter (the contract with the NZ Government, which funds RNZ) to provide statistical information about listeners and online audiences in order to demonstrate performance against funding requirements. 

RNZ also analyses this information for statistical purposes and to make content and performance improvements to both the website and RNZ's services. This is done by statistical analysis and reporting, identifying trends and diagnosing technical issues. 
 

Storing and disclosing personal information 

The information we collect is stored on a range of services as listed below.  

User behaviour information 
  • Google Analytics is used to provide anonymised usage tracking on our websites to understand user behaviour. 

  • Nielsen Online SiteCensus is used to collect usage information to track and report on RNZ’s performance 

  • Chartbeat is used to understand and measure the performance of content on our websites.  

  • Google Firebase is used to provide anonymised usage tracking on our apps to understand user behaviour.

  • Articles reprinted from The Conversation include a tracking code that allows The Conversation to add article views on RNZ to those on their own website.

Technical information 

Technical information such as access and error logs are collected to ensure the correct operation of our website and apps as well as providing audio download statistics. 

Technical information stored as follows: 

  • On RNZ controlled servers located in data centres in Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington and Sydney – basic access and error logs 

  • On newrelic.com - application metrics including response speed 

  • On raygun.com - application errors 

Requests to RNZ services may be served by Fastly Inc and/or Amazon Web Services and basic usage information may be collected by these services and/or by papertrail.com  
 

Disclosing information 

Non-identifying information is disclosed to: 

  • stakeholders (the government bodies through which RNZ’s funding is administered: NZ On Air, The Treasury, and the Ministry of Culture and Heritage) 

  • the public (via the Audience Research part of the website) 
     

Contact 

To ask questions about this privacy policy or the data RNZ collects, please email privacy@rnz.co.nz , phone (04) 474 1999, or write to PO Box 123 Wellington. 

You can subscribe to updates about this policy at http://eepurl.com/haK8M1. Note that this update service is using technology provided by mailchimp.com and your data will be stored by them. 

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