Privacy statement

Centralines' Privacy Statement covers how Centralines deals with your personal information. Please read our Privacy Statement. In summary, our Privacy Statement lets you know that:

•  Centralines may collect personal information from you when you:
  • use Centralines’ website or Centralines’ services, or
  • contact Centralines to request services or in relation to your connection to our network. 
• Centralines may also obtain your personal information from third parties in connection with the services we provide to them. In particular, Centralines may obtain your personal information from electricity retailers about your connection to our network.
• Centralines operates a number of CCTV cameras for detecting and deterring criminal behaviour and footage of you may be recorded and reviewed.
• Centralines won’t use or disclose your personal information except for purposes set out in this Privacy Statement or as allowed by the Privacy Act 2020.
• Centralines may use your information to provide you with relevant information, allow third parties (such as our agents, contractors and field service providers, credit checking or debt collection agencies) (‘Third Parties’) to provide you with information, and to communicate with you.
• Centralines may also use your information for the ongoing provision of our network services to your electricity retailer.
• Centralines may store your personal information, and will take steps to protect that information.
• Centralines is not responsible for the conduct of third party websites to which Centralines’ website is linked.
• You may email our Privacy Officer should you wish to access or correct personal information we hold about you or to make a complaint.
• Centralines may change this Privacy Statement from time-to-time.

1. General

In this Privacy Statement, the terms ‘we’, ‘us’, and ‘our’ refer to Centralines Limited. We respect the privacy of the users of www.centralines.co.nz (our ‘website’), our services, and all 
users of our network.

This Privacy Statement explains how we may collect, store, use, and disclose personal information that you provide to us, or that we get from third parties. By using Centralines’ website or our services you acknowledge that we may collect, store, use, and disclose your 
personal information as set out in this Privacy Statement.

2. Collection of Personal Information

We may collect personal information from you (including your name, email address, phone number, credit card details, car registration, and postal address) when you use Centralines’ website or our services. You may decide not to provide your personal information to us. If you do not provide it, we may not be able to provide you with access to certain information or services.

We may also collect your personal information from your electricity retailer, from publicly-available information, or from any other third party, where we consider it is necessary to do so to in relation to your connection to our network, or in any other situation where we consider 
that to do so is permitted by the Privacy Act.

We may collect footage recorded using CCTV cameras at Centralines’ sites. This footage of you may constitute your personal information.
We may also record calls that you make to our call centre or to Unison’s Network Operations Centre. The content of these calls may constitute your personal information.

3. Use of Personal Information

We collect your personal information for the following purposes, and may use your personal information to:

• provide you with products and services and information on products and services 
• enable third parties to provide you with information on products and services
• provide you with information (including promotional material and news) where you agree to receive such information
• facilitate your connection to our network through your electricity retailer and/or ensure the continuity of supply of electricity through our network, including by undertaking maintenance or upgrades
• carry out activities connected with our business, including quality control, network monitoring, and testing
• address complaints
• in the case of CCTV footage, detect and deter criminal behaviour
• bill you and collect any debt owed to us by you
• enable the Central Hawke’s Bay Consumers’ Power Trust to calculate and/or pay a rebate to users of our network
• improve or update Centralines’ website and our information and services.
• communicate with you
• analyse usage of Centralines’ website and personalise Centralines’ website to your preferences
• enter you into competitions and promotions at your request, and
• do such other things with your personal information as are permitted by the Privacy Act.

4. Disclosure of Personal Information

Your personal information may be made available internally within Centralines. We may also make your personal information available to third parties such as our agents, contractors and field service providers, credit checking or debt collection agencies, your electricity retailer, and website usage analysis agencies. We will only disclose to third parties’ personal information that you have provided to us, or which we have obtained about you:

• for the above-mentioned purposes, or where disclosure is directly related to the purposes above, or
• if you have authorised us to do so, or
• if we have given you notification of the intended use or disclosure and you have not objected to that, or
• if we believe that the use or disclosure is reasonably necessary to assist a law enforcement agency or an agency responsible for national security in the performance of their functions, or
• if we believe that the use or disclosure is reasonably necessary to enforce any legal rights we may have, or is reasonably necessary to protect the rights, property and safety of us, our customers, or others, or
• if we are otherwise required or permitted by law to disclose such information.

5. Storage, Retention and Security

Personal information we collect is collected and stored by Centralines Limited. We will take reasonable steps to protect personal information that is held by us from unauthorised access, use, disclosure, alteration, or destruction.

We will keep your personal information only for so long as is required for the purposes for which the information may be lawfully be used.

We may disclose personal information collected from you in connection with your use of Centralines’ website to Google, Inc or its affiliates for the purposes of analysing website usage. When we do so, such information will be held by Google in accordance with Google’s 
privacy statement available at http://www.google.com/intl/en/privacy/.

6. Collection of Other Information on Centralines' Website

When you visit Centralines’ website, we may use automated tools and methods (such as cookies, sessions, and usage monitoring software) to collect information about your visit, including:

•  the internet protocol address and domain name used by your computer to connect to the Internet
• the operating system and the browser your computer uses, and any search engine or inbound hyperlink used to reach Centralines’ website
• the date, time, and duration of your visit, and
• the pages viewed by you..

This information will be used in aggregate form to analyse how Centralines’ website is being used (for example, to analyse usage patterns in order to improve Centralines’ website). Except as set out in this Privacy Statement, we will not disclose any such information except in aggregate form.

We may gather more extensive information if we are concerned, for example, about abnormal website usage patterns or website security breaches.

7. Third Party Websites

Centralines’ website may contain hyperlinks to websites operated by third parties. We are not responsible for the content of those websites, or the manner in which those websites collect, store, use, and distribute any personal information you provide. When you visit third 
party websites from hyperlinks displayed on Centralines’ website, we encourage you to review the privacy statements of those websites so that you can understand how the personal information you provide may be collected, stored, used and disclosed.

8. Right to Access and Correct

You may request access to, or correction of, any personal information we hold about you by emailing our Privacy Officer at:

Email: [email protected]

• Post: Attention: Privacy Officer
• Centralines Limited
  PO Box 59
  Waipukurau

To ensure that the information we hold about you is accurate and current, please notify us of any changes to your information as soon as possible.

9. Complaints

You may also contact the Privacy Officer on the details above if you believe that your privacy has been breached and you wish to make a complaint.

10. Changes to our Privacy Statement

We reserve the right, at our discretion, to change this Privacy Statement at any time. Changes to this Privacy Statement will take effect immediately when they are published on Centralines’ website. Please check this Privacy Statement regularly for modifications and updates. If you continue to use Centralines’ website or our services, or if you provide any personal information to us after we post changes to this Privacy Statement, this will indicate your acknowledgement of our then-current Privacy Statement.

This Privacy Statement was last updated November 2024.