Introduction

Your privacy is important to us.

  1. We don’t ask for personal information unless we need it.
  2. We don’t share personal information with anyone except to comply with the law, official government requests, develop our services, or protect our rights.
  3. We don’t store personal information unless we need it to carry out our business.
  4. In our services, we aim to make it simple for you to control your information.

We want you to feel comfortable using our services. If you have questions about our Privacy Policy, please contact us at support@hito.org.nz .

Privacy Policy

We collect personal information from you, including information about your:

  • Name
  • Contact information
  • Computer or network
  • Interactions with us

We collect you personal information in order to:

  • Understand how visitors use our web services
  • Use the information to create a report e.g. on visitor numbers using our website

We keep your information safe by encrypting backups and data transfers and ensuring only the appropriate staff members can access the relevant parts.

We keep your information for a maximum of ten years at which point we securely destroy it by deleting it from our servers and will securely shred documents related to you.

You have the right to ask for it to be corrected if you think it is wrong. If you’d like to ask for a copy of your information, or to have it corrected, please contact us at support@hito.org.nz.

Terms we use

We have tried to keep this policy simple, but we use words or phrases that are not typical.

Phrase Meaning
Non-personally-identifying information Information not directly about you. Such as the model of your phone, your computer screen size or operating system.
Potentially-personally-identifying information  Information about you, but would require investigation to identify you. Such as your device Internet Protocol (IP) address or your National Student Index number (NSI).
Personally-identifying information Information which directly identifies you. Such as your name, address, email address or phone number.
HITO Services These include Apprenticeships, training programmes and are the things we offer to our industries.
HITO Web Services These are HITO services that use the internet. Such as email newsletters, HITO website, online surveys.
Devices Web connected devices you use to access the internet. Such as a computer, smart phone or tablet.
Aggregated The information that is presented as a whole or group such as the total number of visitors to a web service or the average time visitors spend on a web page.

Using HITO web services

We collect non-personally-identifying information. We do this is to understand how visitors use our web services. Occasionally, we may use the information to create a report e.g. on visitor numbers using our website. We also collect potentially personally-identifying information like Internet Protocol (IP) addresses for logged in users, users leaving comments on the website, surveys or polls. HITO never shares IP addresses, except:

  1. Where they are visible to the administrators of the web service.
  2. Where you submit information which we consider offensive, potentially places others in danger.

Gathering personally identifying information

To use a HITO service, we gather some personally-identifying information. The amount and type of information depends on the service. We may ask you to provide personal or financial information to process transactions. We only collect information needed to carry out the service. You can refuse to supply this information, but it may stop you from using the service.

Aggregated statistics

We collect statistics about how visitors use our web services such as Google Analytics. We do use a third party service (such as Askimet) to help identify spam. We may display this information publicly or provide it to others, but we will not disclose personally-identifying information other than as described below.

Protecting personally identifying information

We will never sell or share your personal information with a third-party party without your express permission, unless required by law. We do share personally-identifying information to our employees, contractors, affiliated and government organisations who:

  1. Need to know that information in order to carry out HITO service.
  2. Require information for legal and official government requests.
  3. Have agreed not to disclose it to others.

If you are a registered user of a HITO service and have supplied your email address, we may occasionally send you a HITO update by email. You can unsubscribe anytime.

Your choice to share

If you use a HITO web service, you may decide to share information or content with others publicly or privately. Once your information or content is shared, we can take no responsibility for what happens to your information when it leaves our systems.

Keeping your information

We will look after your general information for 7 years after the reason for collecting it has passed. However educational records need to be held for ten (10) years. After that time, we will delete it from our servers and will securely shred documents related to you.

Cookies

Cookies contain information that websites store on your device. They track web preferences and visits. We may use cookies to help us identify and update your preferences. If you don’t want cookies, set your browser to refuse cookies before using our web services. The drawback is that certain features might not work.

Business transfers

If HITO went out of business, became bankrupt or changed hands, your information would be one of the assets transferred or acquired by the third party.

Privacy policy changes

Although most changes are likely to be minor, we may change our Privacy Policy occasionally. Changes are at our sole discretion. If you are interested in those changes, check this page. By using our services after any change in the Privacy Policy, you are accepting those changes. We will communicate any significant/major changes through our website and social media.

 Privacy queries

For all privacy queries, please email us at support@hito.org.nz.

Change Register

Version Date Nature of Change
1.0.0.0 12 June 2014 Policy enters draft stage
1.0.0.1 19 June 2014 Final approval of policy
1.0.0.2 23 March 2017 Website version updated format
1.0.0.3 26 January 2022 Website version wording and contact details revised
HITO