Privacy Policy

Privacy Statement for The Commercial Communications Council (Comms Council) NZ

At The Commercial Communications Council (Comms Council) NZ, we collect your details to keep you informed about marketing content including news about training, legislation, events, and current topics.

Your details are securely stored by our database service provider and are only made available to members of The Commercial Communications Council (Comms Council) NZ. However, your email address will not be made available to anyone without your express permission. You are welcome to update your email preferences under your account settings online or contact us at any time to access and update your personal information or to 'opt out' of receiving further communications from us. We will endeavour to action your request within two working days. Write to us at PO Box 105-052, Auckland Central, Auckland 1010, or contact us via email or phone.

The internet offers the chance to collect information about site users. This information can be personally identifiable information or aggregated information. However, your privacy is important to us at The Commercial Communications Council (Comms Council) NZ, and we want to be sure that you understand the terms and conditions relating to the way in which we collect information and the use of that information. This Privacy Policy tells you what information we collect, what we do with it and your rights to view, correct or change it.

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner provides further details of the New Zealand Privacy Act and how it protects personal information in New Zealand.

Information We Collect

The Commercial Communications Council (Comms Council) NZ operates the following website: www.commscouncil.nz. As part of our operations, we may gather certain types of information about the users of our site.

Personally Identifiable Information

This is provided by you (or someone authorised by you or your organisation) when you register for services that we may offer. Examples of these services could include email newsletters, surveys, or events. Providing this information will always be optional for you. However, some services may not be available to you if you choose not to provide it. You can manage your email preferences by clicking on ‘manage preferences’ which can be found within all promotional emails we send.

Aggregated Data

This information is generated by our systems as they track traffic through our sites. This information does not identify you personally and is not linked to the personally identifiable information that you may have provided.

Who We Share This Information With

  • The information may be hosted with a service provider. Our agreements with them protect the information that we collect from any unauthorised use.
  • The aggregated data (not personally identifiable information) may be shared with third parties such as advertisers or business partners.
  • Your personally identifiable information may be shared with third parties when we believe in good faith that we are required to do so by law.
  • We only share your information with third parties if we have received your permission (usually at the time of collection).

What Else We Do with Personally Identifiable Information

We have collected this information in order to provide the best possible service to you while you are visiting our site. To this end, we may use the information that you provide for the following purposes:

  • To verify your identity if you need help with a forgotten password or you are having login problems with one of our site services.
  • To process any transactions that you might make on our site.
  • To help provide any other services that you have requested.
  • To offer the most relevant information suitable to you and your interests.
  • For any marketing, promotional, publicity, marketing or market research that we might undertake.
  • For any other purposes for which you have given permission.
  • From time to time we may use your data to target you through social media channels, like Facebook. In this case, we match encrypted (hashed) email addresses with encrypted Facebook data to identify a match in a secure environment. The hashed data is deleted as soon as the match is complete and never kept or used by Facebook or shared with any third party.

What about cookies?

A cookie is a small file that resides on your computer and is recognised by our server when you visit our sites. A cookie does not provide us with any personally identifiable information. It does provide details of your IP address, the computer platform that you use (e.g. Mac or Windows), the browser that you use (e.g. Microsoft Explorer or Netscape) and what domain you are accessing our sites from.

We use cookies to:

  1. Track traffic patterns on our site
  2. Ensure that the most relevant content is being shown
  3. Allow you to enter certain site member services without having to log in each time you visit

If you would rather we did not use cookies with you, you can refuse them by turning them off in your browser and/or deleting them from your hard drive. You will still be able to visit our sites.

What about third-party cookies?

Third-party vendors, including Google, use first-party cookies (such as the Google Analytics cookie) and third-party cookies (such as the DoubleClick cookie) together to inform, optimise, and serve ads on the internet based on someone's past visits to our website. Personally identifiable information is not stored by us or any third parties.

You are free to opt out of Google's use of cookies by visiting Google's Opt-Out page. Alternatively, you can opt out of a third-party vendor's use of cookies by visiting the Network Advertising Initiative opt-out page.

What about our advertisers and business partners?

This Privacy Policy only relates to our sites. You should be aware that we are not responsible for the practices of our advertisers or business partners. Our site may contain links to other sites. You should check their privacy policies before providing personally identifiable information to them or any other third party.

Opting in or out, changes and access

Opting in and opting out

You have the option to opt into certain services and to opt out of those services at any stage. This means you may change your mind at any stage about participating in any of our services.

Can we change this policy?

In order to reflect the fact that our business is growing constantly, we reserve the right to change this policy at any time. We will notify site users of any changes to the Privacy Policy.

Your right to access your information

The 2020 Privacy Act gives you the right to access and correct your personal information. You can now manage your email preferences by clicking ‘manage preferences’ which can be found in any promotional email sent from the Comms Council. Or to find out more about how to do this, please contact us at the Commercial Communications Council. Alternatively, mail your corrections to the attention of Axl Arthur, Communications Manager at the Commercial Communications Council, PO Box 105-052, Auckland Central, Auckland 1010.