Privacy

This privacy statement explains how Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora – Southern may collect, use, store, correct, disclose and dispose of information gathered about members of the public for the purposes of providing health care in accordance with the Privacy Act 2020, Health Information Privacy Code 2020 and other relevant legislation.

We may update this privacy statement from time to time. Please check this privacy statement for updates and modifications.

Collecting your personal information

Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora - Southern collects personal information to fulfil its functions to provide health services for the Southern region. Included in these functions is work to improve, promote and protect the health of the population and communities including planning for and funding health services, carrying out teaching and research, monitoring quality and improving the services we deliver.

Use and disclosure of your Personal Information

In accordance with the Privacy Act 2020, the information we hold is used only for the purpose for which it is collected.

Information collected under the Privacy Act 2020 and Health Information Privacy Code 2020 can only be disclosed in very limited circumstances.

In some circumstances, your information may be shared with family, support people or other agencies if you give us your permission or disclosure is authorised by law. We will not disclose your personal information to other government agencies or other organisations without your consent, unless required or allowed by law.

Personal information will also be used to evaluate the quality of services we provide to ensure continuous improvement, analysis for the purpose of evaluating population health outcomes and for the design of services to ensure that these meet the needs of the population we serve.

Storing your Personal Information

Protecting your personal information and data is important to us. Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora – Southern takes reasonable steps to ensure that the personal information we hold is protected against loss, unauthorised access and unauthorised disclosure.

Accessing or correcting your information

You have the right to access information that we hold about you, and to correct it if it’s wrong.

To submit a request for personal information you can write to:

Dunedin: information@southerndhb.govt.nz
Southland: roisouthland@southerndhb.govt.nz
Queenstown Lakes: lakes.recp@southerndhb.govt.nz

We have 20 working days to respond to your request. If your request is urgent, you must state the reasons why. Before releasing personal information, it will be checked to make sure that confidential information is removed, and that other people’s privacy is protected. Some information may be legally withheld in certain circumstances, e.g. where your health or the privacy or safety of another person is at risk. If this happens you have the right to be told why the information is being withheld.

You also have the right to request correction of your information if you think it is wrong. In situations where we don’t agree the information should be changed, you can provide us with a statement of correction. We will attach this to the disputed documentation, to ensure they are read alongside each other.  

Privacy complaints or queries

If you have any queries or concerns about how your personal information has been managed, please contact us first at hnzprivacy@tewhatuora.govt.nz to see if we can resolve the problem.

If you are not satisfied with our response to your concerns, you can contact the Office of the Privacy Commissioner. For more information see the Office of the Privacy Commissioner website.
 

If you do nothing during your visit but browse through the website, read pages, or download information, we will gather and store certain information about your visit automatically. This information does not identify you personally. We automatically collect and store only the following information about your visit:

1. The Internet domain (for example, “www.acompany.co.nz” if you use a private Internet access account, or “www.youruniversity.ac.nz” if you connect from a university's domain) and IP address (an IP address is a number that is automatically assigned to your computer whenever you are surfing the Web) from which you access our website;
2. The type of browser and operating system used to access our site;
3. The date and time you access our site;
4. The pages you visit; and
5. If you linked to or visited the Southern Health / Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora - Southern website from another website, the address of that website.

We use this information to help us make the the Southern Health / Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora - Southern site more useful to visitors – to learn about the number of visitors to our site and the types of technology our visitors use. We do not track or record information about individuals and their visits.

If you send us personal information

If you choose to provide us with personal information – by filling out a form with your personal information and submitting it to us through the website – we use that information to respond to your message and to help us get you the information you have requested.

We only share the information you give us with another public agency[KB1]  organisation if your inquiry relates directly to that organisation, or as otherwise required by law.

We do not create individual profiles with the information you provide or give it to any private organisations.

In some instances your data is stored by external secure online service providers. 

Southern Health / Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora - Southern does not collect information for commercial marketing.

For website security purposes and to ensure that this service remains available to all users, our computer system employs commercial software programs to monitor network traffic to identify unauthorised attempts to upload or change information, or otherwise cause damage.

Except for authorised law enforcement investigations, no other attempts are made to identify individual users or their usage habits. Raw data logs are used for no other purposes.

Unauthorised attempts to upload information or change information on this service are strictly prohibited and may be punishable.

The Southern Health / Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora - Southern has links to government agencies, health organisations, and in some cases to private organisations. Once you link to another site, you are subject to the privacy and security policies of the new site. Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora - Southern does not have control over the policies or content of government or private sites outside of Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora - Southern which we link to for public convenience.