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Privacy Statement

Orion is committed to protecting your privacy. To provide our customers with an electricity service, we often need to collect personal information. Personal information is any information about an individual that allows an individual to be identified.

We respect your right to privacy, and will work to ensure that the personal information we collect about you is not collected or used unless it is necessary for us to provide our service, and is protected once we have it.

This Privacy Statement sets out what personal information we may collect about you, and how we may store, use and share it, in accordance with relevant laws, including the Privacy Act 1993 up to 30 November 2020 and the Privacy Act 2020 from 1 December 2020 (in each case, the Act).

As someone who deals with us and provides us with personal information, you agree to be bound by this Privacy Statement.

We may collect personal information about you

In order to provide our services, we may need to collect personal information about you. This can include:

  • your name
  • your postal address, phone number and email address
  • information you provide during any application process, including when you sign up for an account in our Online Services portal
  • information or material you upload to the Online Services portal
  • in relation to suppliers or contractors, contact details and any personal information provided when you commence a business or service relationship with us
  • the type of service you require from us
  • the address where you require our service
  • information about your transactions with us, including any requests, enquiries and complaints you make to us
  • power use at your property
  • power produced at your property
  • network issues at your property
  • information we may collect incidentally when going about our work – for example, when we use video for aerial line monitoring and fault diagnosis
  • closed circuit TV footage at our sites
  • other information relating to your use of our services

We may store the above information for possible future communications relevant to the purpose of collection.

We may also assign you or the address where you require our service a unique identifier, such as a retailer customer number or installation control point (ICP) number.

How we collect your personal information

We will generally collect personal information from you directly, including:

  • when you first contact us, request a new power connection or sign up for an account in our Online Services portal
  • when you first commence a business or service relationship with us
  • while providing any of our services to you (or where any of our agents or contractors do so)
  • when you use our website or the Online Services portal (including when you upload information or material to the Online Services portal)
  • during your interactions and correspondence with us (including when you contact our Customer Support team to make any request, enquiry or complaint to us)
  • through closed circuit TV surveillance devices at our sites
  • while conducting customer satisfaction and market research surveys

To provide you with the service you need, we may also collect additional personal information from third parties where you have authorised this, this is permitted by law, or where the information is publically available. This may include information from:

  • your electricity retailer
  • the Electricity Authority (including to verify your relevant ICP number(s))
  • a contractor or other third party helping us to provide services to you
  • suppliers of services to us

If you have provided us with personal information about another person, you must have that person’s permission to do so.  As part of this you need to comply with your obligations under the Act.  For example, you may need to tell that other person that you have done so, that they have a right to access their information and that we will handle their personal information in accordance with this Privacy Statement.

Choice to opt out

If you are at all concerned about us collecting your personal information, you can ask us or your electricity retailer if it may be possible to opt out of providing it. While some information is essential to provide you with a service, we will let you know what information might not be essential, and if there would be any impact on the level of service we provide to you if you do choose to opt out.

We will use your personal information for appropriate purposes only

We will only use your personal information for purposes connected with our business, including to:

  • verify your identity and any information you provide to us (including your ICP number(s))
  • provide or maintain, or facilitate the provision or maintenance of, our services
  • improve our services and our Online Services portal
  • manage, maintain and improve our network
  • manage our relationship with you, including exercising and enforcing our rights
  • to interact and communicate with you, including to notify you of network safety issues
  • to contact you about our services or other initiatives we think you might be interested in
  • deal with your requests, enquiries or complaints when you contact our Customer Support team (including any technical support issues relating to the Online Services portal)
  • maintain and administer your Online Services account and our records
  • in the case of suppliers, to purchase products or services
  • undertake marketing, publicity or market research
  • manage risks associated with our network, including protecting the safety of people who use or interact with our network
  • comply with our legal obligations

We may also use your personal information for other purposes for which you have given permission or which is allowed or required by law.

We may use CCTV footage, if required, for detecting and deterring inappropriate or criminal behaviour at our premises, and monitoring the safety and security of our staff, visitors and property.

We may use your personal information to analyse trends, see patterns in our customers’ use of our network and for statistical purposes such as demographics to help us improve our customer service, manage our network capability and meet our legal obligations. Wherever practical, your information used in this way will be aggregated with that of other customers, so you are not personally identified.

We may share your personal information in certain circumstances

To help us with any of the purposes we have set out in this Privacy Statement, we may provide your personal information to:

  • our employees, contractors, suppliers and agents
  • affiliated and related companies
  • other third party providers who help us provide services
  • our advisors
  • a business that supports our services (e.g. a business that hosts or maintains our IT system, data centre or website)
  • service providers commissioned to protect the rights, property or safety of Orion or others
  • any court, tribunal, regulatory authority or governmental agencies where disclosure is required or allowed by law
  • any other person authorised by your or by law

We take reasonable steps to ensure that your personal information is not used by third parties for any other purpose.

Transfer of personal information outside New Zealand

We may from time to time transfer personal information to third parties outlined above who are located outside New Zealand.  If we do so, we will ensure your personal information will be protected by comparable safeguards to those in New Zealand law.  If your personal information will not be protected by comparable safeguards to those in New Zealand law, we will tell you that this is the case, and only transfer your personal information with your consent.

We protect your personal information

We take reasonable steps to ensure that the personal information we collect, use or disclose is accurate, complete and up-to-date.

We may store your personal information on computer databases and/or in hard copy. We take reasonable steps to ensure your personal information is stored securely and protected from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure and misuse or loss. This includes storing electronic data on servers located in secure premises, firewall and antivirus protection, data encryption and secure passwords and login process.However, due to the nature of email and the internet, we cannot guarantee your personal information will be completely free from access by an unauthorised person (e.g. a hacker). However, we use reasonable safeguards to minimise the risk of this occurring.

We may store your personal information using a third party service provider (including providers outside New Zealand).

If a privacy breach occurs which has caused or may cause serious harm to you, we will notify you of this as soon as practicable either directly or, if that is not reasonably practicable, by public notice.

You can access the personal information we hold about you

Aside from some circumstances set out in the Act, you have right to access and correct personal information that we hold about you.  To do so, please contact us using the contact details set out in section 12 below. We may require you to contact your electricity retailer if we received the incorrect personal information from them, in order to achieve a permanent correction.

In some cases, there may be a charge associated with providing copies of your personal information to you. If so, we will let you know before sending your information to you.

Some information we hold is necessary to supply you with a service. Wherever practical, we will remove you from our database if requested.

We dispose of your personal information once we no longer need it

We take all reasonable steps to ensure that your personal information is securely destroyed or deleted, once it is no longer needed for the purposes we collected it. We may be required by law to retain certain personal information.

Links to third party sites

This Privacy Statement only relates to our website and services. Our site may contain links to other third party sites.  We are not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of other websites.  You should check their privacy polices before providing personal information to them or any other third party.

We may amend this Privacy Statement

We may amend this Privacy Statement at any time. Any amended Privacy Statement will be posted on our website and will be effective from the date that it is posted.

Further information

You can call us on 0800 363 9898 or email us at info@oriongroup.co.nz to:

  • obtain information about how we manage the personal information that we hold
  • obtain access to the personal information we hold about you in accordance with the Act and this Privacy Statement
  • make a complaint if you believe we have breached your privacy
  • ask for the information we hold to be corrected, or removed from our database (if practical)

For further privacy information, please refer to the New Zealand Privacy Commissioner’s website – www.privacy.org.nz/.

Updated November 2020.