Our Website Privacy Policy

1. Definitions

In this policy

• "our", "we", "us" or "Spark" means Spark New Zealand Trading Limited and our related group of companies
• "you" means you, the person visiting our website
• "services" means all goods or services we provide and anything else we do for you, other than providing you with access to our website

2. Who this policy applies to

This Website Privacy Policy only applies to your access to and use of our website. In addition to our Website Privacy Policy, our Legal Disclaimer applies to your access to and use of our website. It is important that you are familiar with it; please read it in conjunction with this policy. It includes our website management rights. Read our Legal Disclaimer

Separately, the Spark Privacy Policy sets out how Spark collects, uses, protects, and shares your personal information if you do more than accessing and browsing the website (for example, it applies if you sign into your customer account or communicate with us (including through this website or one of our other digital platforms, such as our app). It also applies when you use our products and services. Read the Spark Privacy Policy

3. What kind of personal information we collect

If you’re browsing our website

If you are only browsing and reading information on our website, then we collect and store the following information about your visit:

• your online device information, such as the IP address and device ID of the device you are using
• the domain name from which you are accessing the internet
• the operating system and the browser your device uses, and any search engine you are using
• your browsing behaviour
• your online transactions · the date and time you are visiting
• location data based on where your browsing session originates
• the URLs of the pages you visit
• if you provide it, your Spark account number
• the domain name of the page you visit after leaving our website
  

If you're engaging with our Chatbot (Ask Ivy)

We will collect and store the information mentioned above, as well as the content of any messages that you send to or receive from our chatbot.

If you're using third party login providers

You can sign into MySpark using third party login providers such as Facebook, Apple or Google. When you do this, we collect authentication information from the third party login providers such as your email address, profile photo (if you have one) and a login token. Spark does not store any passwords from third party login providers and further information about Spark’s collection and use of this personal information is set out in the Spark Privacy Policy

4. How we use and share your personal information

Our general use and disclosure

We use and disclose your personal information to measure the number of visitors to different parts of the website and for a number of different purposes connected with the provision of telecommunication services. For example, we use it to measure and improve the effectiveness of our marketing communications and advertising, including through personalising our website.

Although we may use and disclose anonymised aggregated information about usage patterns, we do not disclose personal information outside our group, except for the reasons set out below in this section. We do not sell information which identifies you personally.

We may make more extensive uses of personal information and disclose it more broadly if we are concerned, for example, about security issues. If we think it is necessary, we can disclose personal information to government, law enforcement and emergency response agencies, such as the Police or the Department of Internal Affairs. It may be necessary for us to disclose your personal information if we have reasonable grounds to believe that doing so is necessary to prevent or lessen the threat to someone’s life or health or for public safety or to comply with legal obligations that we have over time.

If you choose to provide us with personal information such as your email address, for example by filling out an electronic query or order form, we will use that personal information to communicate with you, including in relation to all the goods and services which we provide to you or which we consider might be of interest to you. This may include electronic marketing communications, such as email marketing.

Information that you enter when interacting with our Chatbot (Ask Ivy) will be used to help us improve our Chatbot and understand what people are looking for when they come to our website. We ask that you refrain from entering personal or sensitive information when interacting with our Chatbot. However, if you do and we become aware of it, we will handle it in accordance with our Spark Privacy Policy.

Use of cookies for advertising and analytics

Our website uses cookies to collect and store information about your use of our website. A "cookie" is a small packet of information that our website sends to your web browser or device. It lets our website recognise you and keep track of your preferences when you visit or use our website.

In addition, our website uses a range of third party cookies and other similar technologies, where your information is also used by that third party in accordance with its privacy policy, such as:

• Google Display Network Impression Reporting - which gives us additional insight into who has viewed our paid digital advertising on other websites. This will help us optimise and tailor our advertising.
• DoubleClick Platform integrations & Remarketing with Google Analytics – the integrations between both our web analytics and paid advertising platforms together to give us additional insight. This will allow us to tailor our advertising to ensure the right types and offers are shown to you while you are using the internet outside our website.
• Google Analytics Demographics and Interest Reporting - which gives us insight into behaviour information relating to visitor age, gender and interests on an anonymous and aggregate level. This will help us to understand browsing behaviour to give you a better experience whilst visiting our website.
  
• Adobe Analytics – which includes a Visitor ID allowing us to associate your previous and existing web browser behaviour together, and which gives us insight about how to best cater to your browsing needs.
• Facebook’s Pixel and Mobile SDK – which help us tailor ads, understand what users are doing on our website at an anonymised level and make recommendations to people who may be interested in the products, services or causes we promote.
• TikTok’s Device Data Collection Tools (including Pixel) – which help us use information about how people are interacting with our website to measure the effectiveness of ads and content we present on TikTok, and to present more personalised experiences of Spark on TikTok.
• CHEQ – which helps us distinguish between humans and bots/computers accessing our website, so we can prioritise making it better for the humans. 

Cookies are used to analyse your use of our website and to serve ads when you visit our website. The information may be used to serve you ads in relation to our products or services when you visit our website and third party websites. The information we collect and share with third parties through cookies is anonymised and aggregated and does not include personal information which is likely to identify you.

Access more information about Google's Privacy Policy

While we recommend that you enable cookies to enjoy all the features of our website, the decision is yours. Most browsers allow you to control and manage the use of cookies. Each browser will have different options and you should view your browser help menu for further information:

Read more about how to turn cookies off using Google Chrome

Read more about how to turn cookies off using Microsoft

Read more about how to turn cookies off using Mozilla Firefox

5. How we store and keep your personal information safe

How long we keep your personal information

We usually keep your personal information for as long as it’s needed in connection with the purposes for which it was collected or as otherwise required by law. After that, we delete or anonymise the personal information.

Our storage and security measures

We work hard and follow industry best practice to ensure the personal information we hold is secure. Most of your personal information is stored on our own servers here in New Zealand. If we do need to store your information in the cloud (online) we carefully select trusted data centre providers and take all reasonable precautions to ensure the safety and integrity of your information.
If we become aware of a data breach that we think could compromise your security, we’ll tell you as soon as we can. We may also report the breach publicly, if we consider it appropriate to do so or if we’re required to by law.

Transport Layer Security (TLS) is the most accepted way of ensuring the confidentiality and integrity of the information transmitted on the web. On our website, it operates when you're surfing the website as well as when you complete and submit forms. We are using TLS with Entrust Certificate Authority with at least SHA-256 bit Cipher.

When visiting our website or shopping on our online store, look for the padlock symbol at the left hand side of the address bar in your browser and look for the domain ".spark.co.nz" before the first forwardslash (/) sign. These checks will ensure that the site is secure and Spark is providing the information inside the page.

6. Your privacy: your rights

Accessing and correcting your personal information

You can access or ask us to update or correct your personal information by:

• Emailing us at cic@spark.co.nz
• Writing to the Spark Investigations Centre, PO Box 550, Wellington 6011.

We will contact you to verify your identity and advise of any charges that may apply. Occasionally, we may withhold information for legal reasons.

Making a privacy complaint

If you have any concerns or feel your privacy has been compromised in any way, please let us know.

• The Spark Privacy Complaints Process will ensure your concerns are addressed as quickly as possible. View the Spark Privacy Complaints Process
  
• You can also request investigation by the New Zealand Privacy Commissioner at any time during or after raising a complaint with us. See more information here
  

How to contact us

If you have any general questions or feedback about our website privacy policy, or your privacy rights, please email us at privacy@spark.co.nz

7. Your privacy: your choices

Turning off cookies

As stated above, your internet browser should allow you to control the use of cookies. In addition, you can opt-out of Google Analytics Advertising Features or use a browser plugin to opt-out of Google Analytics cookies.

Opt-out of Google Analytics Advertising Features

Use a browser plugin to opt-out of Google Analytics cookies

How do I unsubscribe from email marketing communications?

There are two ways you can unsubscribe to our email messages

1. Follow the unsubscribe instructions in the email
2. By phone or in writing using the contact details contained in the message

If you have difficulty unsubscribing using any of the methods above please call us on 0800 800 123, or Message us

How do I unsubscribe from SMS marketing communications?

If you want to stop receiving marketing communications sent via text message, reply STOP to the text.

If you have difficulty unsubscribing, please call us on 0800 800 123, or Message us

8. Changing this policy

We may change this policy at any time by changing or removing existing terms or adding new ones. Changes may take the form of a completely new policy. We will tell you about any changes by posting an updated policy on our website. Any change we make applies from the date we post it on the website.