Introduction
At Church Street Garden Central, we value our customers and are committed to protecting your privacy and personal data.
We take your data very seriously and only use it to ensure your shopping experience, either in-store or online through our eCommerce website, is as safe and enjoyable as possible.
This Privacy Policy governs the personal information we collect, maintain, store and use about you as our customers and visitors to our website.
By entering any of our stores, using our website, mobile site or participating in our database and promotions, you acknowledge and agree that your personal information will be treated in accordance with the details of this Privacy Policy.
Under the law, your rights to privacy are also protected. Privacy laws place strict requirements on us to treat certain information collected as confidential, to store information securely and to allow you easy access to check and correct your information.
We will never sell, trade, or rent your personal information to other parties without your permission.
If you would rather not receive any marketing emails from us, you may opt out at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link in the emails that we send to you.
What sort of personal information do we collect?
Within this policy, “Personal Information” is defined in an identical manner to the Privacy Act 1993.
In general terms, this includes any information that can be used to personally identify you. This may include (but is not limited to) your name, age, gender, address, contact details (including phone numbers and email addresses), company name (if applicable), billing/delivery address, orders, receipts, enquiry or complaint details and possibly financial information, including your payment information. If the information we collect personally identifies you, or you are reasonably identifiable from it, then the information is considered personal information. We may require this information to be able to provide you with goods or services.
Other types of information we collect may also include:
- Details of your shopping preferences.
- Details of your visits to our websites and which site you came from to ours.
- Information gathered from cookies in your web browser.
- Your social media username, if you interact with us through those channels, to help us respond to your comments, questions or feedback.
How do we collect your personal information?
We do this in a variety of ways, including through:
- When you sign up to one of our online advertising platforms such as Facebook, our mailing list, or other social media
- Your access and use of our website and communications, including your registration details and information relating to your use of the website and the services, such as the content you access (for example, the products you have viewed, or the search queries you input)
- When you contact us by any means with queries or comments
- When you enter prize draws or competitions
- When you choose to complete any surveys we send you
- When you visit our stores which usually have CCTV systems operated for the security of both customers and staff. These systems may record your image during your visit.
How do we use your personal information?
We collect and use your personal information to provide, administer, improve and personalise your experience with us, to send you marketing communications and information about products and services that we consider may be of interest to you, to run competitions, conduct surveys, process payments and refunds, maintain and update our records, or verify your identity. We may not be able to do these things without your personal information, such as deliver your online orders or respond to your enquiries.
We will only use personal information about you for the following reasons:
- To create an online account for you.
- To record and process your orders.
- To add to our database so we may inform you of specials, promotions, offers and events via email or post.
- To improve the products and services we offer through this website and in our physical store.
- To respond to your queries.
- Any other reasons which we may notify at the time the information is collected.
We do not provide your personal information to other organisations for the purposes of direct marketing unless expressly authorised by you, however we do use other companies and individuals to assist us with payment, point of sale, marketing, data processing, IT, archival, auditing, accounting, customer contact, legal, business consulting, banking, delivery, data analysis, document management, research, investigation, insurance, website and other services. These companies are not authorised to use your personal information for any other purposes.
We will not hold your personal information for longer than is required for the purpose(s) for which it was collected.
We monitor customer traffic patterns and website usage to help us develop and improve the design and layout of the site. Any information automatically retrieved, such as site browsing patterns, will be used only in aggregate form so you will not be personally identifiable.
What happens if we aren’t able to collect personal information?
If you choose not to provide us with the personal information described within this policy, then:
- We may not be able to provide you with the product or services you have requested, either to the same standard or at all.
- We may not be able to provide you with information about products or services that you may want, including information about discounts, sales or special promotions.
- We may not be able to tailor our content, website and communications for your preferences.
Protecting your personal information
As required by the Privacy Act 1993, we follow strict security procedures in the storage and disclosure of information which you have given us to prevent unauthorised access. Our security procedures mean that we may occasionally request proof of identity before we are able to disclose sensitive information to you.
We take website and credit card security extremely seriously, so we utilise a variety of sophisticated security measures to maintain the safety of your personal information that we hold and protect it from misuse, loss, or unauthorised access or modification.
We use the industry standard Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol and our servers encrypt (scramble) everything that you enter into your computer, such as credit card details and billing and delivery addresses. Because it is encrypted, other computers are unable to make sense of it, thereby keeping this information private. You can verify this in your own web browser by looking for the secure padlock icon in the address bar.
If you suspect any misuse or loss of, or unauthorised access to, your personal information, please let us know immediately by emailing churchstreet@gardencentral.co.nz.
Please note that whilst we take appropriate technical and organisational measures to safeguard the personal data that you provide to us, no transmission over the Internet can ever be guaranteed secure. Consequently, please note that we cannot guarantee the security of any personal data that you transfer over the internet to us.
If you are using a computer or terminal in a public location, we recommend that you always log out and close the website browser when you complete an online session for your security. In addition, we recommend that you take the following security measures to enhance your online safety:
- Keep your account passwords private. Remember, anybody who knows your password may access your account.
- When creating a password, use at least 8 characters. A combination of letters, numbers and special characters is best.
- We also recommend that you frequently change your password. You can do this by visiting the My Account page and accessing your personal settings.
Disclosing your personal information
We do not sell, trade or rent your personal information to others. We may provide aggregate statistics about our customers, sales, traffic patterns, and related site information to reputable third-party vendors, but these statistics will include no personally identifying information.
We may disclose your personal information to our employees for the operation of our websites or our business, and for the specific purpose of fulfilling requests by you, and to provide products and services to you, where we are permitted to under the Privacy Act and as otherwise detailed in this Privacy Policy.
We comply fully with the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007. We will not share, sell, rent, swap or authorise any third party to use your email address without your permission.
If you feel you have received an email from us in error, please contact churchstreet@gardencentral.co.nz.
We may employ other companies and individuals to perform essential business functions on our behalf. Examples include fulfilling orders, delivering packages, sending postal mail and emails, removing repetitive information from customer lists, analysing data, providing marketing assistance, processing credit card payments and providing customer services. Such companies and individuals will have access to personal information needed to perform these functions, but may not use it for any other purposes and are required to process the data in accordance with the Privacy Act 1993.
Beyond the above, we release personal information only when it is permitted under the Privacy Act or required by law for legal compliance and law enforcement (including to government agencies with statutory law enforcement responsibilities, and/or to your Internet Service Provider or network administrator); to facilitate court proceedings; enforce or apply our terms and conditions; or protect the rights, property, or safety of Church Street Garden Central, our users, or others, and where we reasonably believe that disclosure is necessary. Government agencies with statutory roles enabling them to request data from us include but are not restricted to the Police, Inland Revenue and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.
Accessing your personal information
You may request access to any personal information we hold about you at any time by contacting us at churchstreet@gardencentral.co.nz or by any other means shown on our Contact Us web page. Your request will be processed in accordance with the Privacy Act 1993.
If you make an access request, we will ask you to verify your identity. There may be instances where we cannot grant you access to the personal information we hold. For example, we may need to refuse access if granting access would interfere with the privacy of others, or if it would result in a breach of confidentiality. If that happens, in most circumstances we will give you written reasons for any refusal.
If you believe that personal information we hold about you is incorrect, incomplete or inaccurate, then you may request us to amend it. We will consider if the information requires amendment and will not charge for making any amendments. If we do not agree that there are grounds for amendment, then we will add a note to the personal information stating that you disagree with it. Registered users of our websites can access and update their user details online. We request that you keep your information as current as possible so that we may continue to improve our service to you.
If you no longer wish to be a member of our mailing list, please let us know so we can delete your membership. This will not necessarily remove all of the data that we have for you as historical data will still exist within our systems.
Internet Use
While we take reasonable steps to maintain secure internet connections, if you provide us with personal information over the internet, the provision of that information is at your own risk.
We use cookies (an alphanumeric identifier that we transfer to your computer’s hard drive so that we can recognise your browser) to monitor your use of the website. You may disable cookies by changing the settings on your browser, although this may mean that you cannot use all of the features of the website.
If you follow a link on our website to another site, the owner of that site will have its own privacy policy relating to your personal information. We suggest you review that site’s privacy policy before you provide personal information.