Privacy Policy

Introduction

The Mortgage Time Limited (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 our website. The change will apply from the date that we upload the revised policy.

What is personal information?

Personal information is information about an identifiable individual (a natural person). It includes information such as your name, contact details, financial information, employment details, and any other information you provide to us that identifies you or could reasonably be used to identify you.

How we use your personal information

We will use your personal information:

• to verify your identity;
• to provide financial advice, services and products to you;
• to assess your financial position and lending eligibility;
• to prepare, submit and manage applications to lenders on your behalf;
• to market our services and products to you, including contacting you electronically (for example, 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 credit card transactions;
• to respond to communications from you, including a complaint;
• to conduct research and statistical analysis (on an anonymised basis);
• to protect and/or enforce our legal rights and interests, including defending any claim; and
• for any other purpose authorised by you or the Act.

Third party collection of information

In addition to information we collect directly from you, we may also collect personal information about you from third parties such as lenders, credit reporting agencies, your accountant, solicitor, employer, or other parties involved in your application, where you have authorised us to do so or where the collection is otherwise permitted by law.

Disclosing your personal information

We may disclose your personal information to:

• lenders and financial institutions for the purpose of arranging finance on your behalf;
• credit reporting and credit reference agencies;
• insurance providers where relevant to your application;
• another company or business connected with our provision of services to you, including our aggregator and adviser groups;
• a person who can require us to supply your personal information (for example, a regulatory authority);
• 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 our services and products;
• your solicitor, accountant, or other professional advisers where relevant to your application;
• a court, tribunal, regulatory authority, or law enforcement agency as required or authorised by law; and
• any other person authorised by the Act or another law (for example, a law enforcement agency or the Financial Markets Authority).

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.

Protecting your personal information

We will take reasonable steps to keep your personal information safe from loss, unauthorised activity, or other misuse. This includes appropriate physical, technical and organisational safeguards to protect the personal information we hold.

Storing your personal information

We may store your personal information in secure electronic and physical records systems, including cloud-based storage provided by trusted third parties. We will retain your personal information for as long as it is required to provide our services to you and to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations, after which it will be securely destroyed or de-identified.

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.

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, email us at brodie@mortgagetime.co.nz. Your email should provide evidence of who you are and set out the details of your request (for example, the personal information, or the correction, that you are requesting).

Data Breaches

If we experience a privacy breach that has caused, or is likely to cause, serious harm to any affected individuals, we will notify the Office of the Privacy Commissioner and the affected individuals as soon as practicable, in accordance with our obligations under the Act.

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 follow a link on our website to another site, the owner of that site will have its own privacy policy relating to your personal information. We suggest you review that site's privacy policy before you provide personal information.

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.