Privacy Policy

Depending on your relationship with us, we may collect:

• Personal details – name, preferred name, date of birth, contact details, address, and demographic information such as ethnicity and the languages you speak.
• Health information – information about a person’s dementia diagnosis, health and wellbeing, care and support needs, the support and services they receive, and related notes recorded by our staff and volunteers in the course of providing support.
• Information about other people – details of carers, whānau, next of kin, emergency contacts, and people holding an Enduring Power of Attorney or other legal authority, where this is relevant to providing support.
• Volunteer and staff information – information needed to recruit, support, train and safeguard our people, including references and safety checks.
• Supporter and donation information – contact and giving details for members, donors and supporters.
• Technical information – basic information needed to keep our systems secure, such as sign-in activity for authorised staff and volunteers.

Wherever practicable we collect information directly from the person it is about. We also receive information from people authorised to act on their behalf, from health providers and other agencies who refer people to us, and from carers and whānau – with consent, or where we are otherwise permitted to do so under the Privacy Act 2020 or the HIPC.

We will only collect information that we genuinely need, and we will be open about why we are collecting it.

We use personal and health information to:

• provide, coordinate and improve dementia support and related services;
• assess needs, plan support, and connect people with the right programmes, education and community services;
• communicate with the people we support, their carers and whānau;
• recruit, support and safeguard our staff and volunteers;
• manage memberships, donations and supporter relationships;
• meet our funding, reporting, professional, safety and legal obligations; and
• keep our services and information secure.

We will not use your information for a materially different purpose without your consent, unless permitted or required by law.

Health information is sensitive, and we treat it with particular care. We only collect health information that is necessary to provide support, we limit access to staff and volunteers who need it for their role, and we use and disclose it only for the purposes for which it was collected – or as otherwise allowed under the HIPC, for example where there is a serious threat to someone’s life, health or safety.

We may share personal or health information:

• with the carers, whānau or representatives involved in a person’s care, where appropriate and consistent with their wishes;
• with health providers and other support agencies, with consent or where otherwise permitted, to coordinate care;
• with trusted third-party service providers who help us operate our services (for example, secure software and infrastructure providers). These providers are bound by confidentiality and may only use the information to provide services to us; and
• where we are required or authorised to do so by law.

We do not sell personal information, and we do not share it for unrelated marketing.

We hold information in secure systems and take reasonable steps to protect it from loss and from unauthorised access, use, modification or disclosure – including access controls, authentication for staff and volunteers, and encryption in transit and at rest.

Some information may be stored or processed on our behalf using secure cloud-based infrastructure that may be located in New Zealand or overseas. Where information is held overseas, we take reasonable steps to ensure it is protected by comparable safeguards to those required under New Zealand law.

We keep information only for as long as it is needed for the purposes described in this policy, or for as long as we are required to retain it by law and professional standards. Health information is retained for the minimum periods required under New Zealand law. When information is no longer required, we dispose of it securely.

You have the right to ask for access to the personal and health information we hold about you, and to ask us to correct it if it is wrong. A person authorised to act on another’s behalf – for example under an Enduring Power of Attorney – may exercise these rights for that person.

To make a request, contact us using the details below. We will respond as soon as reasonably practicable and within the timeframes required by the Privacy Act 2020. In limited circumstances we may need to withhold some information, in which case we will explain why.

Some of the people we support may, at times, be unable to make decisions about their own information. In those situations we work respectfully with the person and with those legally entitled to act for them – such as an attorney under an Enduring Power of Attorney, a welfare guardian, or whānau – and we act in the person’s best interests and consistent with the law.

Access to our client-management system is restricted to authorised staff and volunteers, who sign in securely. The portal uses only the cookies necessary to keep you signed in and to keep the system secure.

We may update this policy from time to time. The current version will always be available on this page, with the date it was last updated shown at the top.

If you have any questions about this policy, want to access or correct your information, or wish to make a complaint about how we have handled your information, please contact our Privacy Officer:

We will do our best to resolve any concern. If you are not satisfied with our response, you may raise the matter with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, which can investigate privacy complaints: privacy.org.nz.

We are a registered New Zealand charity and incorporated society. Our registration details can be verified on the public registers: