Your privacy

Privacy Policy

Updated: 8th April 2024
PRIVACY POLICY


INTRODUCTION

BudgetBuddie Limited (a New Zealand registered company with company number 8498195) (we, us, our) complies with the New Zealand Privacy Act 2020 (the Act) when dealing with personal information.  Personal information is information about an identifiable individual (a natural person).

This policy sets out how we will collect, use, disclose and protect your personal information.

This policy does not limit or exclude any of your rights under the Act.  If you wish to seek further information on the Act, see www.privacy.org.nz


CHANGES TO THIS POLICY

We may change this policy by uploading a revised policy onto the website.  The change will apply from the date that we upload the revised policy. 


WHO DO WE COLLECT YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION FROM

We collect personal information about you from:

• You, when you provide that personal information to us, including via the website, our applications, and any related service, through any registration or subscription process, through any contact with us (e.g. telephone call or email), or when you buy or use our services and products.
‍• Third parties where you have authorised this (for example, where you use New Zealand open finance infrastructure service Akahu to connect to our services and products, but we will never collect any internet banking login details of yours) 
• Where the information is publicly available.  

If possible and practicable, we will collect personal information from you directly.  

Providing some personal information is optional. However, if you choose not to provide certain information we may be unable or restricted from providing you with our products and/or services.

Information about you from Akahu:

We use Akahu, New New Zealand's open finance provider to provide some of our services.

When you connect an account to BudgetBuddie via Akahu, we may collect your personal information from Akahu such as your name, date of birth, address, account details, balances and transactions.

We strictly do not store any credentials and details you have provided Akahu with, such as login information for your bank or other connection providers that you've connected to within Akahu. Those details are all handled by Akahu in line with their terms of use & privacy policy.

Find out more about Akahu here.


HOW WE USE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

We will use your personal information:  

• to verify your identity
• to provide services and products to you
• for security and fraud prevention
• to comply with the law
• to market our services and products to you and of third parties, including contacting you electronically (e.g. by text or email for this purpose) 
• to improve the services and products that we provide to you
• to undertake credit checks of you (if necessary)
• to bill you and to collect money that you owe us, including authorising and processing payment/credit card transactions (including via
Stripe – and Stripe’s privacy policy link can be viewed at https://stripe.com/en-nz/privacy)
• to respond to communications from you to conduct research and statistical analysis (on an anonymised basis)
• to protect and/or enforce our legal rights and interests, including defending any claim for any other purpose authorised by you or the Act.



DISCLOSING YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

We may disclose your personal information to:  

• another company within our group
• any business that supports our services and products, including any person that hosts or maintains any underlying IT system or data centre that we use to provide the website or other services and products 
• a credit reference agency for the purpose of credit checking you
• financial advice providers
• other third parties (for anonymised statistical information)
• a person who can require us to supply your personal information (e.g. a regulatory authority)
• any other person authorised by the Act or another law (e.g. a law enforcement agency) 
• any other person authorised by you.

A business that supports our services and products may be located outside New Zealand.  This may mean your personal information is held and processed outside New Zealand (including in Australia).  

We may transfer your information in the case of a sale, merger, consolidation, liquidation, reorganisation or acquisition.


PROTECTING YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

We will take reasonable steps to keep your personal information safe from loss, unauthorised activity, or other misuse. Examples of key security measures we have implemented to keep your data safe include: 

• 256-bit bank-grade encryption for the connection with Akahu (see above)
• 256-bit bank-grade encryption for the flow between and storage of data using our servers with AWS (Amazon Web Services). 
• Biometrics such as face ID, PIN login combinations, 2-factor authentication, and requiring a secure password


INTERNET USE

While we take reasonable steps to maintain secure internet connections, if you provide us with personal information over the internet, the provision of that information is at your own risk.

If you post your personal information on any message board or chat room service we offer, you acknowledge and agree that the information you post is publicly available.

If you use a third-party service in connection with our service or you follow a link on our website to another site, the third party or owner of that site will have its own privacy policy relating to your personal information.  We suggest you review that privacy policy before you provide personal information.


ACCESSING AND CORRECTING YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

Subject to certain grounds for refusal set out in the Act, you have the right to access your readily retrievable personal information that we hold and to request a correction to your personal information.  Before you exercise this right, we will need evidence to confirm that you are the individual to whom the personal information relates.

You may correct certain profile information in your account settings.

In respect of a request for correction, if we think the correction is reasonable and we are reasonably able to change the personal information, we will make the correction.  If we do not make the correction, we will take reasonable steps to note on the personal information that you requested the correction.

If you want to exercise either of the above rights, contact us at budgetbuddie.com/contact.  You should provide evidence of who you are and set out the details of your request (e.g. the personal information, or the correction, that you are requesting).

We may charge you our reasonable costs of providing to you copies of your personal information or correcting that information.


COOKIES

We may use cookies (an alphanumeric identifier that we transfer to your computer’s hard drive so that we can recognise your browser) to monitor your use of the website.  You may disable cookies by changing the settings on your browser, although this may mean that you cannot use all of the features of the website.


CONTACTING US

If you have any questions about this privacy policy, our privacy practices, or if you would like to request access to, or correction of, your personal information, you can contact us here.