Privacy notice
NZSL Online Dictionary cares about your privacy and wants to be open with you about what we do with your personal information.
This Privacy Notice describes how we collect, use, and share personal information and explains your rights in relation to those activities.
We must comply with the Privacy Act 1993, the Public Records Act 2005 and, if you are in the European Union, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
To contact us about privacy matters, you can email us at [email protected] or call 0800 VICTORIA (842 867). For other questions, please contact [email protected].
Who are we?
NZSL Online Dictionary is owned by the Deaf Studies Research Unit at Victoria University of Wellington.
We maintain a website:
• https://nzsl.nz
and two mobile apps:
• App Store https://itunes.apple.com/nz/app/nzsl-dictionary/id521076445?mt=8
• Google Play https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hewgill.android.nzsldict&hl=en
We have a Facebook page:
• https://www.facebook.com/NZSL-Online-Dictionary-211547965549802/
We maintain two Twitter accounts:
• @NZSL_Online, @NZSLdict
Why do we collect your information?
We collect your information in order to:
• carry out activities that are necessary for the web and mobile applications to run
• communicate with you
• Monitor, evaluate and improve our performance and effectiveness
These are our ‘purposes’ or ‘legitimate interests’.
How do we collect information?
We collect information about you in two ways:
Information that you provide to us
This is information provided through your discussions and interactions with us and includes
• when you fill in the 'contact us' form on our website
• when you email or phone us
• when you leave a comment on our Facebook page or in the App Store or Google Play store
Information we automatically collect
Information is collected through your use of our website (including via cookies) and mobile apps.
We use cookies on our site where they are required for particular features to work – for example, if you are a logged in user, to allow you to remain logged in whilst you complete certain tasks.
We also use tracking cookies to analyse non-identifiable web traffic data to improve our services.This data is aggregated and cannot personally identify you. You can opt out of this at any time.
We use Google Analytics to track use of our website and the mobile app in the Google Play store.We use Apple Connect analytics to track use of the mobile app in the App Store.
Read more about managing your cookie settings: https://www.victoria.ac.nz/site-info/cookies
What information do we collect?
The information we collect includes your:
• biographical details (including name, hearing status and sign language use)
• contact details (including email address)
• other information that you have decided to share with us
Collection of this information is necessary for our Purposes and Legitimate Interests (see above). You may chose not to provide it to us but, if you do, we may be unable to reply to contact requests. If you choose not to enter information about your hearing status or sign language use, we will not be able to consider suggestions for NZSL signs to be included in the dictionary.
How long do we keep personal information?
Your personal information will be deleted after three years unless we need to retain it for longer to comply with our legal obligations.
Who will have access to your information?
Our staff will have access to your personal information only where they have a genuine need to do so. We will not share your information with anyone unless permitted or required by law (including the Privacy Act 1993 and Education Act 1989)
How do we keep your information secure?
We take all reasonable steps to keep your information safe and secure. In some instances, your personal information may be transferred, and held, by service providers in New Zealand and overseas (for example, where it is stored using a cloud-based service). Where this occurs, we do everything reasonably within our power to ensure that the service provider also has reasonable security measures in place to protect your information.
We will not transfer your information to an overseas-based service provider unless we are satisfied that the service provider has obligations to protect your information in a way that is comparable to the protections afforded by New Zealand privacy law.
What are my rights?
You have the right to ask for a copy of any personal information we hold about you, and to ask for it to be corrected if you think it is wrong (and you are unable to update it yourself through a relevant online service). If you would like to do this, please email [email protected].
We will respond to your request as soon as reasonably practicable and no later than 20 working days after we receive it.
You also have the right to make a complaint to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner if you think we have breached, or may have breached, your privacy. You can contact the Office of the Privacy Commissioner at www.privacy.org.nz.
In addition, the GDPR gives you the right to:
• withdraw consent, where consent is the legal basis for our processing of your information;
• be forgotten, that is your information to be removed from systems that we use to process your personal information. However, under New Zealand law, we are required to retain certain information under the Public Records Act 2005;
• request copies of your personal information in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and/or request us to transmit this information to another person (where this is technically feasible);
• restrict our processing in certain ways;
• object to certain processing activities by us; and
• make a complaint to a supervisory authority.