Privacy Policy

Updated 9th February 2021

Application of this Privacy Policy

APT Childcare (“APT” / “we” / “us” / “our”) understands and respects the importance of your privacy and is committed to safeguarding your personal information.

This Privacy Policy sets out how we collect, hold, use and disclose your personal information, including any financial information that you provide to APT Childcare.

By accessing and/or using our website and/or our services, you consent to the terms of this Privacy Policy and agree to be bound by it.

Collection of personal information

‘Personal information’ is information, in any form, about an identifiable individual.

Personal information may be collected directly by APT Childcare from you (or your representative), or via a third party. In most situations, APT Childcare collects personal information about an individual directly from the individual in question, but may also collect information (a) from a parent, in respect of their child(ren); or (b) from the APT Childcare customer who is employing the individual. Where APT Childcare is provided with personal information by its customers, APT Childcare relies on its customers having obtained the consent of the individual for the collection, use, and disclosure of his or her personal information to and by APT Childcare.

APT Childcare may also collect your information when you:

  • visit and/or register on any of our websites;
  • use our services or software;
  • contact our support team.

APT Childcare will not ask you for any personal information which we do not need. The Act requires that we should collect information for a purpose that is reasonably necessary for, or directly related to our activities and operations.

Kinds of personal information collected and held

APT Childcare collects only the information necessary to provide its services.  APT Childcare generally collects and holds the following types of personal information (which will vary depending on the context of the collection):

  • name, address and contact details (for example email, phone and fax) – including for parents/guardians and their child(ren);
  • information about identity (for example date of birth) – including for parents/guardians and their child(ren);
  • government identifiers (for example Customer Reference Number) – including for parents/guardians and their child(ren);
  • information about financial affairs (for example banking details, payment details) – including for parents/guardians and their child(ren).

On occasions, a range of sensitive information may also be collected or held about individuals.  For example, this may include:

  • health information (which may include information about an individual’s medical history, immunisations, allergies, special needs, disabilities or injuries) – including for parents/guardians and their child(ren);
  • any applicable court order relating to the individual; and
  • the individual’s ethnic or racial origin.

Where you provide sensitive information to us, you consent to us using that sensitive information for the purpose for which it was collected.

Purposes for which personal information is collected and held

APT Childcare collects and uses personal information for a number of different purposes relating to its activities and services, including:

  • billing and account management;
  • for administering our services and/or software;
  • for internal business operations such as planning, product development, training, research, and reporting to APT Childcare-related entities;
  • advising clients of functions and product launches;
  • providing direct market offers for products and services provided by or on behalf of APT Childcare (or our selected business partners), which APT Childcare considers to be of interest to its customers; and
  • to communicate with you and to notify you of any new or changed services.

APT Childcare may aggregate non-personally identifiable data about you. This data will in no way identify you or any other individual. APT Childcare may use such aggregated non-personally identifiable data to: (a) assist APT Childcare to better understand how its customers are using APT Childcare services; (b) provide APT Childcare customers with further information regarding the uses and benefits of APT Childcare services; (c) develop industry benchmarking insight; and (d) to improve the APT Childcare services.

By accessing our services or software, you consent to the collection of your personal information and for your information to be held and used in accordance with this Privacy Policy or otherwise authorised/limited by you.

Collection and storage of personal information

APT Childcare collects personal information through a number of different methods, including:

  • APT Childcare suite of software applications.
  • email communications;
  • Text / SMS message (where you subscribe to GoText);
  • meetings;
  • telephone and facsimile communications;
  • electronic and paper-based forms; and
  • websites.

APT Childcare stores personal information in electronic and paper-based records.

Protection of personal information

APT Childcare exercises great care to protect personal information that it holds. This includes, among other things, using industry-standard techniques such as firewalls, encryption, intrusion detection, and site monitoring. Your information is accessible by authorised employees only and remains the confidential property of APT Childcare at all times.

Unfortunately, no data transmission over the internet can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, while APT Childcare strives to protect your personal information, we cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to us or receive from us.

APT Childcare will never ask you for your password in an unsolicited phone call or in an unsolicited email or communication via its software applications.

Disclosure of personal information

APT Childcare does not sell or rent personal information to anyone.

However, in using personal information, it may be necessary for APT Childcare to disclose personal information to various organisations and/or parties, such as the banking/financial institutions, health insurance organisations, contracted service providers, business partners, and related companies of APT Childcare.

APT Childcare may also disclose personal information in special cases when APT Childcare believes, in good faith, that such action is reasonably necessary, for example:

  • to conform to legal requirements or comply with legal process;
  • to protect and defend APT Childcare’s rights or property;
  • to enforce APT Childcare’s contractual arrangements; or
  • to protect the interests of APT Childcare’s clients or others.

APT Childcare will take seriously any unauthorised or accidental disclosure of personal information.

Disclosure of personal information overseas

APT Childcare holds your personal information on servers located primarily in New Zealand.

In providing our services to you, it may be necessary for APT Childcare to, on occasion, disclose your personal information to overseas recipients. We will undertake due diligence before sending personal information across national borders to ensure that any personal information we send to overseas recipients is adequately protected.

Website

APT Childcare will generally only collect personal information from its website where a person chooses to provide that information.

If you visit our website to download or read information, then we may record technical information (for example your IP or server address, the time and date of your visit, and your general locality) which does not reveal your identity. This information is used for monitoring and development purposes. APT Childcare will not make any attempt to identify you in these circumstances, other than in exceptional circumstances, for example an investigation into the improper use of the website.

Some functionality of our website is run by third parties (for example Google, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn) who may capture and store your personal information, including outside of New Zealand. Those third parties may not be subject to New Zealand’s privacy laws. APT Childcare is not responsible for the privacy policies of third parties. We encourage you to examine each website’s privacy policies and make your own decisions.

Our website may contain links to other websites. APT Childcare is not responsible for the content or the privacy policies of external websites.

Cookies

A cookie is a small file which asks permission to be placed on your computer’s hard drive. Once you agree, the file is added and the cookie helps analyse web traffic or lets you know when you visit a particular site. Cookies allow web applications to respond to you as an individual. APT Childcare uses traffic log cookies to identify which pages are being used. This helps us analyse data about web page traffic and improve the APT Childcare website in order to tailor it to our customers’ needs. We only use this information for statistical analysis purposes and then the data is removed from the system. APT Childcare uses a third-party system for logging traffic; the third-party provider does not keep any personally identifiable information in the data it collects.

Overall, cookies help us provide you with a better website, by enabling us to monitor which pages you find useful and which you do not. A cookie in no way gives us access to your computer or any information about you, other than the data you choose to share with us. No personal information about visitors to our website is stored within our cookies.

You can choose to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. However, this may prevent you from taking full advantage of the website.

How to correct, access and update your personal information

You have the right, under the Act, to access any information held about you. We will not charge any administrative fee for satisfying your request, though may require that you first establish your identity.

If you believe that the information that we hold about you is incorrect or incomplete you can contact us to rectify and update that information. If you no longer wish us to possess your personal information you can simply contact us, and we will permanently delete all information held about you.

To access or seek correction of your personal information please contact APT Childcare using the contact details set out in section 13 of this Privacy Policy.

Complaints

APT Childcare is committed to achieving a speedy and fair resolution of any complaints and will ensure that your complaint is taken seriously.  If you believe we may have breached your privacy rights, you may contact APT Childcare using the contact details set out in section 13 of this Privacy Policy. We take the collection and protection of your personal information seriously and any complaint will be investigated and responded to within 30 working days. We will take any appropriate measures to address the complaint if it is found to be justified, including amending our policy and practices.

How to contact us

If you wish to:

  • ask questions about this Privacy Policy;
  • seek correction of or obtain access to your personal information;
  • ask about how your personal information is collected, used, held or disclosed; or
  • make a complaint about a breach of your privacy,

please contact APT Childcare’s Privacy Officer using the following contact details:

support@aptchildcare.co.nz
234 Broadway Avenue, Palmerston North 4414, New Zealand

Changes to our Privacy Policy

From time to time it may be necessary for us to review and revise this Privacy Policy. We reserve the right to change this Privacy Policy at any time. We may notify you about changes to this Privacy Policy by posting an updated version on our website.

Availability of this Privacy Policy

If you wish to access this Privacy Policy in an alternate form, for example hard-copy, please contact APT Childcare using the contact details set out in section 13 of this Privacy Policy.