This privacy policy applies to personal information collected through the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s (MBIE) website business.govt.nz, and all its subsites. It also explains how we treat personal information if you call the business.govt.nz contact centre.
You can use business.govt.nz without disclosing any personal information. You can also choose to set up a business.govt.nz account which will let you:
You will not be able to register for training or events if you do not have a business.govt.nz account. When you register for an event not run by business.govt.nz, we may direct you to an external registration page which will have its own privacy policy.
Some of our tools now have a “save” feature, which means you can:
You need to have a business.govt.nz account to be able to use this feature. At present, you can save information from our Climate Action Toolbox and Cash Flow Forecaster tools to your account, but we will be extending this feature to our other tools over time. The information you save to your account is kept private – it will not be accessed, used or shared by MBIE or any third party contractors.
Climate Action Toolbox(external link)
Cash Flow Forecaster(external link)
You may choose to voluntarily provide personal information through this website – for example, in comments, questions, registration or feedback. This information will be viewable by:
When you subscribe to one of our alerts or newsletters, we store the details you provide in a secure third-party database called Qrious. We will ask you to provide your name and email address so we can send you future alerts or electronic newsletters. When you opt out from an alert or newsletter, we will delete your details from our database.
Privacy Policy(external link) — Qrious
MBIE may ask or require you (including where required by legislation administered by MBIE) to provide some personal information when you complete an online form, for example:
When you provide personal information, it will be held by MBIE. It may be stored or accessed on behalf of MBIE by authorised third parties (such as third-party contractors) to the extent that is necessary, for example to administer or work on the site. We will store and keep it secure in accordance with the Privacy Act 2020. Any third parties will be subject to MBIE’s information security and privacy requirements.
MBIE will generally not share personal information provided or collected through this website, unless it is necessary to do so for the purpose for which you gave us the information, for example:
MBIE will not otherwise disclose personal information provided or collected through this website unless required or otherwise permitted by law.
We will primarily use personal information provided to us through this website for the purpose you provided it, for example:
We may also use personal information provided to us through this website for other reasons permitted under the Privacy Act, for example:
MBIE will only retain personal information as long as it is required for the purposes for which it may lawfully be used.
Where any information (including personal information) provided to or through this site constitute public records, it will be retained to the extent required by the Public Records Act 2005. MBIE may also be required to disclose information:
MBIE websites have security measures in place to prevent the loss, misuse and alteration of information under our control. To maintain the cyber security of MBIE systems and information, MBIE systems are subject to ongoing monitoring. This includes activity logging, analysis and auditing.
We may use information about your use of our websites and other IT systems to prevent unauthorised access or attacks on these systems or to resolve such events. We may use this information even if you are not involved in such activity. MBIE may utilise services from one or more third-party suppliers to monitor or maintain the cyber security of its systems and information. These third-party suppliers will have access to:
As part of our commitment to providing the best possible service to our customers, we record all telephone calls answered in our contact centre. This helps us identify how we can provide you with better service.
We record calls:
We understand your personal information is important to you, and we are committed to protecting your privacy. We store the recordings securely for two years and destroy them after this period.
You can request a transcript of your call by phoning 0508 266 726 and asking for the Privacy Officer. We will make this available to you unless we have a lawful reason for withholding the information it contains.
You have the right to:
If MBIE has a good reason for refusing a request for correction, you can ask that a statement be attached to the information, noting that a correction was sought but not made.
If you want to check the personal information that we hold, you can:
For more information on privacy laws in New Zealand and contact details for the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, visit the Office of the Privacy Commissioner website.
We may collect statistical information about your visit to help us improve this site. This information is aggregated and non-personally identifying. The information will be viewable by site administrators and certain other MBIE staff. It may also be shared with other government agencies.
Statistical information includes:
Browser or ‘web’ cookies are small text files that are sent by a website and stored on your computer's hard drive. Cookies are generally used to improve your experience of a website (for example, by remembering preferences you have set) and to track site usage.
MBIE uses cookies on this website to track individual user journeys. We use cookies to gather data about trends in site usage using tools such as Google Analytics and Hotjar. We also use cookies to gather data about your browsing history on the MBIE website. We may use this data to:
Using Google Analytics means that we can advertise to visitors who have viewed certain pages on our site. This could be in the form of:
Using Hotjar means we can better understand our users’ needs, for example:
We may use this information to optimise our service.
Hotjar uses cookies to collect data on our users’ behaviour and their devices. This includes:
Hotjar stores this information on our behalf in an anonymised user profile. Hotjar does not use any of the data collected on our behalf. For further details, please see the ‘about Hotjar’ section of Hotjar’s support site.
Third-party vendors, including Google and Facebook, use cookies to serve advertisements based on someone’s past visits to the business.govt.nz website. Any data collected will be used in accordance with our privacy policy as well as Google and Facebook's privacy policies.
Google Privacy Policy(external link)
Facebook Privacy Policy (external link)
Hotjar privacy Policy (external link)
The types of Advertising Features implemented on the MBIE website may include:
You can opt-out of remarketing by visiting the following pages on Google and Facebook.
Google – block certain ads(external link)
Facebook – your ad preferences(external link)
You can manually disable cookies at any time – check your browser's 'Help' to find out how. Disabling cookies will not affect your ability to use this website.
We have a number of different tools available on our site.
The Digital Boost Skills Training and Support initiatives requires you to register for the training being offered. If you choose to register you will need to create an account with a third party provider (The Mind Lab Limited) who provides the training on behalf of MBIE. To create an account you’ll need to provide your name, email address, NZBN, region and business structure. You can also provide optional information about your business including:
You may also choose to subscribe to the business.govt.nz newsletter.
The Climate Action Toolbox requires you to select answers to several questions before showing your results.
If you choose to save your results and come back to them later, you will need to have a business.govt.nz account. You may also choose to subscribe to updates about the tool, and to the business.govt.nz newsletter.
The Climate Action Toolbox was created by business.govt.nz and the Sustainable Business Network, in association with BNZ, EECA, Meridian Energy, NZ Trade & Enterprise, Waka Kotahi and DNA design.
The Funding Explorer tool requires you to enter an amount of funding and select answers to several questions before showing your results.
The Cash Flow Forecaster requires you to enter financial information about your business before it will display your cash flow forecasts. If you choose to save this information to come back to later, you will need to have a business.govt.nz account.
Note that the web browser you access this tool on may use web cookies to remember the financial data you enter.
The Do business online tool requires you to select answers to several questions before showing your results.
The Compliance Matters tool requires you to provide an email address to save an action list and send reminders. Business.govt.nz does not collect or store these email addresses. Some browsers may auto fill an email address previously entered if the cache has not been cleared but this is not related to any action by business.govt.nz.
MBIE will be collecting statistics from the Compliance Matters tool including information on items saved to action lists. This information is anonymised and cannot be traced back to an email address used to save an action list.
The Employee Cost Calculator tool requires you to provide an email address to email their calculation results. Business.govt.nz does not collect or store these email addresses.
The Employment Agreement Builder (EAB) tool requires you to send your completed agreement(s) to a secure email address. You will also be asked for an email address if you start an employment agreement and intend to finish it at a later date. These email addresses are stored within the EAB tool and used to send you a link to return to your draft agreement. Stored email addresses are inaccessible to MBIE and the EAB tool service provider.
The tool will store this email address until the agreement is complete. Once you complete your employment agreement, your email address will be deleted from the tool and business.govt.nz. These email addresses will not be used for marketing purposes unless you opt-in to receive marketing emails.
In the event that you do not complete an employment agreement, private information, like employer and employee names, will be deleted. You will have to retype these fields when you return to your draft agreement. Any draft agreement not reopened in 90 days will be deleted, along with your email address.
Once you have completed your employment agreement, all information will be deleted from both the tool and business.govt.nz.
In order to display your results, the self-assessment tools ask for some anonymous information about your business, including:
If you want to save your results and come back to them later, business.govt.nz collects your email address to send a link to the results. It also offers you the option to sign up to two separate newsletters. This email address will only be used again by business.govt.nz if you subscribe to one or both newsletters. Note that if you save your results but do not subscribe to a newsletter, your email address is not retained, and will not be further accessed or used by MBIE.
The Workplace Policy Builder (WPB) tool requires you to send your completed workplace policy to a secure email address. You will also be asked for an email address if you start a workplace policy and intend to finish it at a later date. These email addresses are stored within the WPB tool and used to send you a link to return to your draft policy. Stored email addresses are inaccessible to MBIE and the WPB tool service provider.
The tool will store this email address until the workplace policy has been completed. Once you complete your workplace policy, your email address will be deleted from the tool and business.govt.nz. These email addresses will not be used for marketing purposes unless you opt-in to receive marketing emails.
In the event that you do not complete your workplace policy you will have to retype these fields when you return to your draft workplace policy. Any draft workplace policy not reopened in 90 days will be deleted, along with your email address.
Once you have completed your workplace policy, all information will be deleted from the tool and business.govt.nz.
The ONECheck tool requires you to enter a business name to see if that business name, and related web domains, trade marks and social media usernames are available.
ONECheck uses APIs to search New Zealand Companies Office, New Zealand Business Number (NZBN) and Intellectual Property Office (IPONZ) data. ONECheck also queries social media platforms for information. Users of those APIs, via ONECheck, agree to adhere to the relevant API terms of service. For YouTube, this means being bound by YouTube Terms of Service and Google’s Privacy Policy.
YouTube Terms of Service(external link) — YouTube
Google Privacy Policy – Privacy & Terms(external link) — Google
The information you choose to provide in our tools is held by MBIE. However, where appropriate information may be stored or accessed by authorised third parties who provide services to us (such as IT contractors).
MBIE also collects statistics from business.govt.nz tools. This information is anonymous and cannot be traced back to any user. The statistics MBIE collects may be shared with our partners.
Note that some browsers may autofill your previously entered selections if your cache has not been cleared. This is not related to any action by business.govt.nz.
Contact us if you have any questions, concerns or complaints about our privacy policy.
Last modified: February 2022