Copyright, Privacy policy & Disclaimer

The purpose of this privacy statement is to let users of this website and those involved with insolvency procedures, know when we collect personal information and what we may do with it. We don't use, share or disclose personal information collected or received through this website except as set out in this statement.

Scope

This privacy statement applies to personal information collected through www.insolvency.govt.nz.

Services

Where ITS makes reference to ‘services’ these include but are not limited to:

Insolvency procedures

Debt Repayment Order (DRO)
No Asset Procedure (NAP)
Bankruptcy (Debtor or Creditor Application)
Official Assignee (OA) administered Liquidations

Insolvency Interactions

Creditor claim filing
DRO supervision
Account administration (including RealMe®)
Updates and changes to circumstances
Requests for approval from the OA

Insolvency General

Feedback and queries
Complaints
Survey participation and results

General use of our information

You can use www.insolvency.govt.nz without disclosing any personal information.

Legally required disclosure of personal information

You are required to provide personal information when accessing our insolvency services. When you enter an insolvency process, the Insolvency Act 2006 requires you to provide a great deal of personal information. Much of that information is sensitive, but is required in order to perform our duties.

If you do not provide this information, we will not be able to accept your application. If the court declares you bankrupt, the law also requires you to provide the information. Failure to do so will lead to your bankruptcy being extended and may also lead to further court proceedings.

Voluntary disclosure of personal information

You may choose to voluntarily provide personal information through this website (e.g. in the feedback form or when subscribing to news and updates). This information may be viewable by site administrators, our staff (as appropriate) and third-party contractors who may administrate or work on the site.

Collection of personal information

We need personal information in order to:

manage online accounts
verify individuals identity and their contact details
process applications received
create an insolvency estate to administer
identify a debtor’s assets and liabilities
assess the validity and priority of creditor claims
complete the administration of insolvency procedures

Holding of information

When you provide personal information, unless otherwise indicated, it will be held by us. It may be stored or accessed on behalf of us by authorised third parties (such as third-party contractors) to the extent that is necessary, for example for them to administrate or work on the site. We will store and keep your personal information secure in accordance with the Privacy Act 2020 and any agents will be subject to our information security and privacy requirements.

Use of personal information

We will use personal information provided to us through this website for the purpose you provided it (e.g. to administer, evaluate, or to action and respond to the information provided). We may also use personal information provided to us through this website for reasons permitted under the Privacy Act and other relevant legislation (e.g. with your consent, for a directly related purpose, or where the law permits or requires it).

Disclosure of insolvency information

The Insolvency Act 2006 and associated Regulations require ITS to make publicly available the following information:

The type of insolvency procedure you are in
Your insolvency (estate) number
Your full name and any alternative name you may use or have used
Your month and year of birth
Your address when you are adjudicated
Your current address unless withheld legally
Your insolvency status (for example “current bankrupt”)
The time and date that you were adjudicated bankrupt, date of admission into the NAP or date of the DRO
The Court where you were adjudicated (if relevant)
Your occupation at time of adjudication
Your employment status
Where your case is being managed, so people can make enquiries

For more details on information that will be made publicly available please see section 449 of the Insolvency Act 2006(external link).

As a creditor, debtor, DRO Supervisor or Authorised Agent, you are entitled to receive key information, including information about the amounts and priorities of claims, debtors assets and liabilities, and the progress of administration.

Retention of personal information and public records

We will only retain personal information as long as it is required for the purposes for which the information may lawfully be used.

ITS is required to maintain public registers for the insolvency procedures administered by the Official Assignee. Information about your Bankruptcy or NAPs stays on the public register until 4 years after the insolvency has been discharged or becomes unconditional. For DROs the details appear on the register for the length of the order only.

If you enter into a NAP or bankruptcy more than once, your information will remain on the public register permanently. ITS is not responsible for what individuals or organisations do with information that they collect from the public register.

Where any information (which may include personal information) provided to or through this site constitutes public records; it will be retained to the extent required by the Public Records Act 2005.

We may also be required to disclose information under the Official Information Act 1982 or to a Parliamentary Select Committee or Parliament in response to a Parliamentary Question.

Security

ITS takes reasonable steps to keep all private information secure so that it can only be accessed or modified by people who have authority to do so.

Our websites have security measures in place to prevent the loss, misuse and alteration of information under our control. To maintain the cyber security of our systems and information, our systems are subject to ongoing monitoring (including 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.

We may use services from one or more third party suppliers to monitor or maintain the cyber security of our systems and information. These third party suppliers will have access to monitoring and logging information as well as information processed on our websites and other IT systems.

In order to access some of our transactional services ITS have adopted RealMe® as a secure logon protocol. Read the RealMe® Privacy statements(external link).

Rights of access and correction

Your rights

You have the right to:

Find out from us whether we hold personal information about you
Access that information; and request correction of that information Information can be updated by users themselves by accessing their personal details through this website

If we have a good reason for refusing a request for correction, you are entitled to request that a statement be attached to the information of the correction that you have sought but not made.

If you want to check personal information that we hold, please contact us via our Contact us page.

For more information on the privacy laws in New Zealand and contact details for the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, visit the Privacy Commissioner's website.(external link)

Collecting statistical information using cookies via Google Analytics

We may use cookies to gather data about trends in website usage using a tool called Google Analytics. This data will be viewable by website administrators and certain other staff. It may also be shared with other government agencies. This information is aggregated and it does not identify you personally.

Cookies

Browser or ‘web’ cookies are small text files that are sent by a website and stored on your computer's hard drive to collect information about how you browse the website.

Cookies are used to:

measure how you use the website so it can be updated and improved based on your needs
remember the notifications you’ve seen so that we don’t show them to you again

Read Google’s privacy statement.(external link)

You can manually disable cookies at any time. Check your browser's 'Help' to find out how (please note that disabling cookies will not affect your ability to use this website).

Data collected may include:

Your IP address
The search terms you used on this site
The pages you accessed on this site and the links you clicked on
The date and time you visited this site
The referring site (if any) from which you clicked to reach this site
The device you used to access this site
Your operating system (e.g. Windows 10, Mac OS X)
The type of web browser you used to access this site (e.g. Internet Explorer, Google Chrome)
Other things like your screen resolution, the release of your installed Flash version and the language setting of your browser.

Disclaimer

Every endeavour has been taken by the Insolvency and Trustee Service to ensure that the information on this website is accurate and up to date. The legal information contained in this website is intended as a general guide and is not a detailed legal analysis.

The information provided does not replace or alter the laws of New Zealand and other official guidelines or requirements.

Visitors to the Insolvency and Trustee Service website should take specific advice from qualified professional people before undertaking any action following information received from this website.

The Crown does not accept any responsibility or liability whatsoever whether in contract, tort, equity or otherwise for any action taken as a result of reading, or reliance placed on the Insolvency and Trustee Service because of having read, any part, or all, of the information in this website or for any error, inadequacy, deficiency, flaw in or omission from the information provided in this site.

All links and references to other websites, organisations or people not within the Insolvency and Trustee Service are provided for convenience only and should not be taken as endorsement of those websites or information contained in those websites nor of organisations or people referred to.

The Insolvency and Trustee Service also does not implicitly or impliedly endorse any website, organisation or people who have off-site links to the Insolvency and Trustee Service website.

All visitors who ignore this disclaimer do so at their own risk.