Hinekōrako is the online regulatory and intelligence system for Taumata Arowai.  If you are a drinking water supplier (including a drinking water supply owner, operator or their agent), event organiser or accredited laboratory, you can use Hinekōrako to comply with registration and notification duties under the Water Services Act 2021.  If you are a member of the public, you can also use Hinekōrako to:

• view certain information held by Taumata Arowai, including information maintained on the register of drinking water supplies
• let Taumata Arowai know about drinking water-related concerns or complaints.

1. Privacy

In this statement we explain how we handle your personal information and personal information you provide on behalf of other people.

2. The information we collect

If you are a drinking water supplier, event organiser or accredited laboratory, you will need to obtain a username and password to use all the features of Hinekōrako.  When you apply for a username and password to allow you to access and use Hinekōrako, we'll ask you for some identifying information, such as your name, email address and phone number.

There are a number of other ways in which you might provide us with personal information when using Hinekōrako.  For example, you may provide us with personal information:

• about the owner and operator of a drinking water supply when you apply to register that drinking water supply
• when you provide feedback to us on your use of Hinekōrako, in a submission form (including when you let us know about a drinking-water related concern or complaint), or when subscribing to updates or seeking support
• about other people within your organisation who are authorised to have access to Hinekōrako
• about another drinking water supplier or about an authorised person.

You agree that when you provide us with personal information about other people within your organisation who are authorised to have access to Hinekōrako you will only provide us with personal information about those people if they have agreed to you providing their personal information to us.

When you're logged in, our systems will also generate information about your use of our services.  Taumata Arowai is the entity that will hold your personal information.  We take good care of it and have systems and processes in place to protect it in accordance with the Privacy Act 2020.

If we need personal information but you don't wish to provide it, we may not be able to provide you with the services you would like or are required to obtain to comply with duties under the Water Services Act.

3. Why we collect and store your personal information

We collect and retain the personal information outlined above to enable us:

• to identify you
• to communicate with you, including responding to your feedback and information provided in submission forms
• to administer, evaluate and improve Hinekōrako
• to deliver and improve our services
• to investigate or respond to a drinking-water related concern or complaint that you raise with us
• to enable or assist you to comply with your obligations under the Water Services Act, which may include: ensuring a drinking water supply is registered; or notifying us of certain matters in accordance with duties imposed by that Act
• to monitor the compliance of drinking water suppliers with the provisions of the Water Services Act
• to carry out our regulatory functions under the Water Services Act or other legislation, for example, considering applications for exemptions, granting authorisations, responding to serious risks to public health, exercising the emergency powers in the Water Services Act
• to establish and maintain registers of information in accordance with the Water Services Act, including to keep and maintain a publicly available version of the register of drinking water supplies
• to take compliance and enforcement actions under the Water Services Act.

4. Disclosure

We control the disclosure of your personal information.  We will not disclose it unless we need or are empowered to do so in accordance with the requirements of the Water Services Act or other legislation, for example:

• the Water Services Act requires personal information about the owner, operator and authorisation of the operator to be made publicly available in the register of drinking water suppliers
• the Water Services Act requires information about the location of drinking water abstraction points to be provided to local authorities
• there are times when we will need to disclose personal information to other regulatory bodies, such as a regional council, local authority, the Ministry of Health, or a Medical Officer of Health
• there are further provisions in the Water Services Act requiring or authorising the sharing of such information with other regulatory bodies, including sections 44, 45 and 204.

Other circumstances when we might disclose your personal information include:

• we need to share it with third-party contractors, to the extent necessary for them to administer or work on Hinekōrako or to work on special projects with us
• you have authorised us to do so
• we need to do so to protect our rights or a third party’s rights
• we need to disclose it to our professional advisors
• we consider it necessary or desirable to do so for public health or security reasons
• we are required or permitted to do so by law, including in response to a request for official information made under the Official Information Act 1982.

Feedback is important and is used to evaluate and improve Hinekōrako.  If you provide feedback by email, that feedback is sent to appropriate Taumata Arowai staff.  We may pass on relevant comments to other people within Taumata Arowai who administer or contribute content to the site.  This could include your email address and other identifying information that you’ve provided.

If you provide us with a submission form, that submission form will be sent to appropriate Taumata Arowai staff.  We may pass on relevant content from that submission form to other people within Taumata Arowai, other government agencies or third parties who administer or are participating in the particular project or consultation that the submission form relates to.  This could include your email address and other identifying information.

5. Statistical information

We collect non-identifying statistical information about visits to this site.  Site statistics allow us to assess the number of visitors to different sections of the site, identify what information is of interest, monitor system performance and help us make the site more useful to you.  We use Microsoft Azure Monitor’s Application Insights feature to collect statistical information about your visit to help us analyse use of, and improve, Hinekōrako.  This data is aggregated and cannot personally identify you.  We do not collect your IP address when you use Hinekōrako.

6. Cookies

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.

Hinekōrako uses cookies where they are required for particular features to work – for example, if you are a logged in user, to allow you to remain logged in whilst you complete certain tasks.  You can remove or block cookies (by using settings in your browser), but doing so may affect your ability to use elements of Hinekōrako.

7. Access and correction

You have the right to access and to request correction of any of your personal information that we hold.  

You also have the right to ask us to withhold information from the publicly available register of drinking water supplies.  We will grant such a request if we consider that it is in the public interest to do so, which may include the protection of privacy or the security of a drinking water supply.

To exercise these rights, or to ask us anything else in relation to your privacy, please contact us by email at info@taumataarowai.govt.nz.