The Electoral Commission will ensure your personal information is kept safe and your privacy is upheld.
We will do so in compliance with the Privacy Act 2020, the Health Information Privacy Code 2020, the Election Access Fund Act 2020, and other applicable legislation. We have provided the following information, to help you understand how we protect your privacy.
Collection
We collect some personal information to administer the Election Access Fund. The information you provide is voluntary, however if you do choose to apply for access to the fund, we will require the following to process your application:
- your name and date of birth
- your contact information including your address
- whether you are intending to stand independently or for a political party
- information about barriers to your participation in election activities
- information about the services, support and equipment you would like funding for and how these will support or contribute to your participation
- whether any of these services, supports and equipment might also be funded by other Government agencies
- and, if access is given to the fund, financial information needed to pay for the services, supports and equipment funded.
We collect this personal information so that we can:
- assess your eligibility to apply for and receive funding for support in election activities
- use your information to provide the fund’s services to you, including the payment of services, supports and equipment
- contact you about your application or access to the fund.
We may also ask for information about your ethnicity or cultural identity, and disability type/s, so we can report on equity and our Te Tiriti obligations.
Storage and security
We will hold your information and keep it safe by restricting who can access it. Only people who need to, will have access to your information, and only the information necessary for their roles. These people are:
- employees at the Electoral Commission, that require access to your information, to manage the Election Access Fund
- members of the Application Panel, who will receive de-personalised applications to consider funding
- providers of goods and services that are funded under the Election Access Fund
- the Ministry of Justice, who receive de-personalised reporting on the fund, as required by legislation.
We take all reasonable and practicable measures, to keep the personal information we hold about you safe from loss, from access, use, modification, or disclosure that is not authorised, and from any other forms of misuse. We do so by ensuring access to our systems of record are appropriately restricted, and our IT infrastructure is kept secure from external attack or unauthorised access.
Use, disclosure and accuracy
We will only use your personal information for the purposes we collected it. We will work with you to ensure that your information is not disclosed without your consent, and that your personal information is kept up-to-date and accurate.
Retention
We keep your information for a period following a General Election until final reporting obligations are met. At this point we securely destroy it by permanently deleting the information from our systems of record. However, if you ask us to, we will keep the information you give us for any applications at the next general election.
Your rights
You have the right to ask for a copy of any personal information we hold about you, and to ask for it to be corrected if you think it is wrong. If you’d like to ask for a copy of your information, or to have it corrected, please contact us at electionaccessfund@elections.govt.nz, or 0800 36 76 56, or PO Box 3220, Wellington 6140.