This privacy statement explains how the Stuttering Treatment and Research Trust collects, stores, uses and shares your personal information.

Openness and transparency are important to us. The Privacy Act 2020 requires us to tell you certain things about the personal information we need to carry out our functions. This is where we explain our privacy practices and why you can trust us to handle your information with care and respect.

We have categorised our statutory functions into two broad groups: Compliance and Engagement. Under these groups, we explain what personal information we collect and how we use or share it. We also explain about the way we store and protect personal information and your rights to access and correct it.

In short, here are a few key privacy messages to note:

  • We only collect personal information where this is necessary to carry out our functions
  • We may collect personal information about you either directly from you or from other people or agencies, and we may generate personal information about you when we carry out our functions
  • We store all our data (including your personal information) on a secure Zoho CRM cloud platform, and we use both Google and Microsoft Office software to perform certain functions. We protect our data with all reasonable technical and process controls
  • You can ask us for a copy of your personal information at any time. We will be as open as we can with you but must also ensure we meet our client privacy requirements.
  • We will only use and share personal information where necessary to carry out the functions for which we collected it, or if required by law

If you cannot find the information you need, or you have concerns about the way we are managing your personal information, then please contact us at any time:

Contact us

We may update this privacy statement from time to time, for example to reflect changes to the Privacy Act, so feel free to check in again occasionally to see what might have changed. This statement was last updated in April 2020.

Compliance

Find out what personal information we collect when we take on new clients, contacts, and donors and what we do with it. This section explains how we collect, use and share personal information when we are carrying out our compliance related functions.

The personal information we collect about you

Our compliance functions require us to collect more personal information than any of our other functions. We receive and use personal information as part of our treatment, training, and support services.

From you directly

Most of the personal information we collect is provided directly by you, or your authorised representative, when you engage with us and come to us for treatment, training or support.

You do not have to provide your personal information to us. However, we may not be able to effectively provide you with services or carry out our functions if you do not provide us with the information we need.

The personal information we may collect from you directly includes:

  • your name
  • your contact details, including your address, email address or phone number
  • your status as a client (active or inactive)
  • any relevant siblings, parents or children if they are your guardians or are also people who stutter.
  • certain financial information if you are a paying client or donor (please note we do not have access to details such as your full credit card number)
  • notes from your treatment with us
  • correspondence from you to us
  • your responses to satisfaction surveys we ask you to complete (these are usually anonymous).

Generated by us as we carry out compliance related functions

In the course of our treatment together we may generate notes and data regarding you that is relevant to our treatment, training, or support services.

The personal information we may generate about you includes:

  • correspondence (such as letters and emails), including between our staff or with the staff of other agencies
  • file notes from sessions or groups, anecdotes, and other conversational pieces.
  • photos taken from events

What we do with your personal information

How we use it

In order to carry out our compliance functions, we need to use your personal information in the ways set out below. Where we need to use information in a way we have not anticipated here, we will only do so if required or permitted by law or with your authorisation.

We will use your personal information to:

  • contact you about our treatment, training and support services, as well as donations and funding.
  • Pull together anonymous data regarding people who stutter and our service delivery to help with research, training or funding
  • Deliver effective treatment to you

When we share it

We share personal information where necessary in order to properly carrying out our functions.

We may, for example, share personal information with:

  • another Speech Language Therapist, support worker, guardian, or health professional of your choosing, with your authorisation
  • Anonymously with our stakeholders such as grants and funding organisations
  • Anonymously with media as part of stories about stuttering

Engagement

Find out what personal information we collect from enquiries, submissions, e-learning, and events and through our website, and what we do with it:

This section explains how we collect, use and share personal information when we are engaging with the public and with agencies, including managing our treatment, training and support services, delivering online services, receiving submissions or comments, and otherwise engaging with the community through our website or communications activities (such as events, surveys, newsletters and focus groups).

The personal information we collect about you

Effectively engaging with the public requires us to collect and use some personal information. However, we only collect the personal information you choose to give us, and you can opt out of our communications activities, such as receiving our newsletter, at any time.

The information we may collect when you engage with us includes:

  • your name (if you choose to provide it)
  • your contact details, including your address, email address or phone number
  • Your reason for accessing our services
  • any questions or comments you submit via our blog or live chat function
  • details of any events you have registered for, including dietary or other specific requirements
    • your responses to surveys or focus group discussions (usually these will be captured in a de-identified form)
    • information about your use of our website (explained further below).

We collect the following information about your use of our website (though please note we work to ensure we don’t associate these with your personal information):

  • Your IP address
  • The search terms you used
  • The pages you accessed on our website and the links you clicked on
  • The date and time you visited the site
  • The referring site (if any) through which you clicked to our website
  • Tour operating system (such as Windows 10)
  • The type of web browser you use (such as Mozilla Firefox)

See our cookies policy below for more information about the cookies we use on our website (for example to make our website  function, or to track and analyse website usage):

Use of cookies on our website

Cookies are small text files that are placed in your browser by the websites you visit. They are widely used to help users navigate websites efficiently, to perform certain functions on the sites, and/or to provide site owners with information about how their sites are used.

We use cookies on our site in order to help us more accurately understand the engagement of the stuttering community, and areas where our help is used most. 

Social media cookies

We use social media on some sections of our website to help communicate our messages to the right people – e.g. Facebook can find new people who fit the demographic of our most engaged website users to deliver stuttering related content for them.

These social media services have their own privacy policies and may track your use of our website on those pages where their links are displayed. They do this by the use of persistent session cookies. If you are logged in to those services (including any Google service) while using our site, their tracking will be associated with your profile with them.

To disable all cookies

Most web browsers will allow you to set some control over cookies in your browser settings. This includes deleting them from your browser or disabling them altogether.

If you do choose to set your browser to disable all cookies, this may affect your ability to use some of the features on our site.

To learn more about cookies and how you can manage them in your web browser, visit:

www.allaboutcookies.org

www.aboutcookies.org

Third party providers

We use some third party providers to manage some of our engagement processes and services, such as newsletters, events registration, donations, and referrals. Where we do this, any personal information you provide (such as your email address) may also be collected and stored by this provider and you should also check their privacy statements when using those services. We take steps to ensure that any providers we use can protect the personal information they process for us, including by conducting privacy impact assessments.

We use the following third party providers:

MailChimp

We use MailChimp to deliver our newsletters.

Read MailChimp’s privacy policy (external link)

Zoho

We use Zoho to compile all our clients and contacts into one database. We also use their email functions for some newsletters.

Read Zoho’s privacy policy (external link)

PowerDiary

PowerDiary is our booking system, used to manage schedules and bookings.

Read PowerDiary’s privacy policy (external link)

Zoom

We host our online therapy, courses and groups through Zoom.

Read Zoom’s privacy statement (external link)

Skype

We host our online therapy, courses and groups through Skype as well.

Read Skype’s privacy statement (external link)

Links to social networking services

We use social networking services such as Facebook and YouTube to communicate with the public about our work. When you communicate with us using these services, the social networking service may collect your personal information for its own purposes.

These services may track your use of our website on those pages where their links are displayed. If you are logged in to those services (including any Google service) while using our site, their tracking will be associated with your profile with them. See our cookies policy above for more information.

These services have their own privacy statements which are independent of ours. They do not have any access to the personal information we hold on our systems.

What we do with your personal information

How we use it

We will only use the personal information you provide to us for the purposes of delivering the services you have requested (such as registering you for treatment, an event, or as a donor) or carrying out our lawful functions.

We may use your personal information to:

  • contact you about your request
  • consider and respond to your enquiry
  • moderate the content on our live chats and blogs (including contacting you about this)
  • improve our website and the delivery of our online services
  • conduct internal statistical analysis and meet our reporting requirements.

When we share it

We do not generally share your personal information with third parties (other than third parties which are providing services to us). However, we may share your personal information in the following circumstances:

  • If necessary to appropriately respond to your enquiry
  • If you have requested a support worker, health professional, or other organisation have your personal information
  • We may share personal information with the Police or another government agency, if required by law (for example to assist with the investigation of a criminal offence), to report significant misconduct or breach of duty, or where there is a serious threat to health or safety. If our staff are threatened or abused, we may refer this to the Police

Storage and security

Find out where we store your personal information and how we protect it:

Storage and retention

We use third party providers to store and process our data.

We store most of the personal information we collect and generate electronically on Google cloud servers. We also use Microsoft Office 365 for our email and other office productivity applications. This means that the personal information we hold may be transferred to, or accessed from, countries other than New Zealand.

Information about contacts is also stored on the Zoho CRM servers which are located outside of New Zealand.

We retain personal information in compliance with the requirements of the Public Records Act 2005.

Security

We take all reasonable steps to ensure the personal information we collect is protected against loss, unauthorised access and disclosure or any other misuse, including meeting the requirements prescribed by the New Zealand government for the secure handling, storage and disposal of any protectively marked or security classified information.

We ensure that our third party data processors can meet our privacy and security requirements.

Your privacy rights and how to contact us

Find out how to access or correct your information, and how to complain if you think we’ve misused it:

The Privacy Act gives you rights to request access to and correction of the personal information we hold about you. You can take steps to control the ways we use your information (such as opting out of receiving newsletters). You can also complain to us at any time if you think we have misused your personal information.

Contact us to exercise any of these rights, including the right to complain about our privacy practices. Any complaints you do not feel we are responding to effectively you can refer to the Privacy Commissioner here:

New Zealand Privacy Commissioner.

Requesting access to or correction of your information

You have the right to request a copy of the personal information we hold about you (whether we have collected from you directly or from a third party). You also have the right to ask us to correct your information if you think it is wrong.

We will process your request as soon as possible, and no later than 20 working days after we receive it. We will be as open as we can with you, but please note that your right to request personal information is subject to section 206 of the Privacy Act.

Opting out of certain uses of your information

Engagement information

You can opt out of receiving our newsletter or being included on any other subscription list or news feed by following the unsubscribe link at the end of the email or contacting us:

Contact us

You can opt out of our cookies when you use our website by following the steps set out in our cookies policy above.

Compliance information

You cannot opt out of your personal information being used by us where you have asked us to exercise one of our statutory functions and your personal information is necessary for us to exercise this function. However, if you have any particular privacy concerns or sensitivities, you can raise them with us at any time.

Complaining about our privacy practices

We want to know if you have concerns about our privacy practices, whether these relate to the way we collect or share information about you or our decision on your access request. This allows us to try and put things right for you and helps us to identify and fix any problems with our systems or processes.

In the first instance, let us know about your concerns and we will try our best to resolve it.

If you are concerned or have any questions about how your data is being used or stored by our organisation, please contact us at support@start.org.nz and we’ll endeavour to get back to you as soon as we can.