Privacy Notice
This privacy notice explains how Kāinga Ora – Homes and Communities looks after your personal information.
It lets you know how we collect, store, use and under what circumstances we may disclose your information; how you can access and correct your information; and, how you can make a privacy complaint.
Introduction
To achieve our vision of Building better, brighter homes, communities and lives, we fulfil several key functions. We are:
- a public housing landlord
- an urban development agency and a builder of public, affordable and market housing, and
- the manager of the government’s home ownership assistance products and programmes.
To do all this, we sometimes need to collect and use your personal information.
What we collect depends on how we are working with you and what service we are providing, but personal information may include:
- identification documents, e.g., a copy of your New Zealand passport, birth certificate, or confirmation of permanent residency if you are not a New Zealand citizen
- your name
- date of birth
- your address
- your contact phone numbers and email address
- who is living in your home with you
- the pets you have
- the condition of the home you are renting
- banking details, e.g., to set up an automatic payment to us
- employer details, e.g., for you to authorise deductions from your salary
- your employment status, proof of income and other financial information, such as a KiwiSaver contribution statement.
We collect personal information for lawful purposes to carry out our functions and to provide services to you.
This includes:
- identifying you
- contacting you
- working out how we can help you
- ensuring your tenancy is administered in accordance with the Residential Tenancies Act 1986 and Public and Community Housing Management Act 1992, and
- ensuring the financial products we provide are administered in accordance with relevant legislation.
We collect personal information from you when you interact with us. This may happen in a number of ways, including when you:
- talk to us over the phone, e.g., when we make a note of the call or the call is recorded by our call centre
- meet us in a Kāinga Ora office or your home
- communicate with us via email, text or online e.g., our feedback form
- fill in a Kāinga Ora form (either online or in hard copy)
- register and use a MyKāingaOra account
- subscribe to email updates.
We usually try to collect personal information from you directly.
However, we may collect your personal information from other people and organisations, such as when you have provided consent for us to do so or when we are permitted by law.
For example, if you are a tenant, we will collect personal information from the appointed social housing agency – the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) – under the Public and Community Housing Management Act 1992.
MSD decides who qualifies for public housing and gives us personal information about you and your household that is used by us to perform our role as a social housing provider, to assess the available public housing properties and place you into a suitable home based on need and eligibility.
MSD includes information about your:
- level of housing need
- the type and location of houses that may be suitable for you and your household
- information relevant to tenancy sustainability, and
- the Income Related Rent calculated for you and your household.
Collecting information with your permission
In most cases, we will ask for your permission to collect information, and we will tell you who we are collecting it from and why.
For example:
- If you are a tenant, we will ask you to complete a consent form which identifies the organisations we need to talk with to help with your housing needs.
- If you are applying for a KiwiSaver first-home withdrawal, we will ask for your permission to contact your KiwiSaver scheme provider.
- If you are a job applicant, we will ask for your permission to contact your referees.
Collecting information when we are permitted by law
When there’s a lawful purpose, we may collect your personal information from someone other than you, when:
- It is publicly available
- It’s needed
- to maintain the law, including for compliance, integrity, and enforcement activities
- to protect public revenue
- for the conduct of proceedings before a court or tribunal
- to prevent or lessen a serious threat to someone’s life
- It will not be used in a way that identifies you or is used for statistical or research purposes and won’t identify you.
Kāinga Ora may collect personal information under specific statutory powers, including the Public and Community Housing Management Act 1992 and the Kāinga Ora–Homes and Communities Act 2019, where this is necessary to carry out our functions, make decisions, undertake compliance or integrity investigations, and take enforcement action.
While we will aim to keep you informed of any indirect collection of your personal information, there are circumstances when we are not required to tell you. These include:
- When you’ve already been told by the organisation giving us your information, for example, MSD tells you that your details have been provided to us so we can assess the available public housing properties and place you into a suitable home based on need and eligibility
- When not telling you won’t harm your interests, for example, we have collected your emergency contact information and can reasonably presume you have made them aware
- When the information we’ve collected is publicly available, for example, when we are trying to establish whether a Kāinga Ora property is no longer occupied
- When we need it
- to maintain the law, for example, when investigating disruptive behaviour at a Kāinga Ora property, suspected fraud or misrepresentation, breaches of eligibility or assistance requirements, or other non‑compliance with housing‑related legislation
- to protect public revenue, for example, when investigating the abandonment of Kāinga Ora property which is in rent arrears
- for the conduct of proceedings before a court or tribunal, for example, to support an application to the Tenancy Tribunal
- to prevent or lessen a serious threat to someone’s life, for example, when there is a safety issue at a Kāinga Ora property and to keep us all safe when working together
- When telling you would harm the purposes of the collection, including where notification could compromise a compliance or integrity investigation, for example, we are investigating the circumstances of an applicant for home-related financial assistance
- When telling you is not practical, for example, we don’t have your contact details or the information we hold is outdated, inactive or no longer reliable
- When the information will not be used in a way that identifies you or is used for statistical or research purposes and won’t identify you.
The following examples show the main types of people and organisations we collect information from. This list is not exhaustive, and we may collect information from other sources where this is lawful and necessary for our functions.
Government agencies
- MSD, for example, information about a person’s housing related needs to allow us to assess the available public housing properties and place them into a suitable home based on need and eligibility.
- New Zealand Police, for example, if we are investigating an incident of disruptive behaviour at a Kāinga Ora property where the Police were involved; where a crime has occurred at a Kāinga Ora property; or if there is a safety issue at a Kāinga Ora property.
- Department of Corrections, New Zealand Police and Parole Board, for example, regarding bail, parole and home detention requirements, and the appropriate placement of an offender at a Kāinga Ora property.
- Fire and Emergency New Zealand, for example, if there is a fire at a Kāinga Ora property or they are called to a multi-occupancy Kāinga Ora building.
- Accident Compensation Corporation, for example, about housing modifications needed at a Kāinga Ora property.
- Oranga Tamariki, New Zealand Police and other family violence and child safety agencies, for example, when there is a family violence or child safety incident at a Kainga Ora property (under the Family Violence Act 2018 and Oranga Tamariki Act 1989).
- Health New Zealand, when we need to prioritise maintenance work and improvements for a Kāinga Ora property to help reduce the risk of preventable health conditions and respiratory issues, such as rheumatic fever.
Our Partners
- Kāinga Ora Maintenance Partners and contractors, for example, when they update us on the progress and completion of maintenance work at a Kāinga Ora property; or advise us of incidents they have observed at a Kāinga Ora property which may breach a tenancy agreement, e.g., not being admitted on to a property.
- Security partners, for example, when they advise us of incidents they have observed at a multi-occupancy Kainga Ora building which may breach a tenancy agreement.
Organisations that have information about you
- Local authorities, for example, when we are investigating incidents such as excessive noise at a Kāinga Ora property.
- Utility providers, local authorities, insurance providers, and financial institutions, for example, when we are conducting a placement review to determine ongoing eligibility for a Kāinga Ora property.
- Financial institutions, for example, when we are investigating the circumstances of an applicant for home-related financial assistance.
- Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, when there are concerns about animal welfare at a Kāinga Ora property.
- Publicly available sources, for example, where we are investigating non-occupancy or abandonment of a Kāinga Ora property.
The community
- Other Kāinga Ora customers or private owners, for example, when we receive complaints or need to obtain further information about disruptive behaviour at a Kāinga Ora property.
- Other Kāinga Ora customers, your household members and neighbours, when we are investigating non-occupancy of a Kāinga Ora property.
We create and maintain a secure environment for the protection of your personal information and records. Our systems are monitored, analysed and audited.
All Kāinga Ora employees, maintenance partners and trades are required to act in accordance with the Privacy Act 2020 when handling your information.
Our staff receive training to ensure that your information is handled with respect, care and attention.
Cloud use
Put simply, cloud computing is the delivery of computing services, such as storage and software, over the internet (”the cloud”).
At Kāinga Ora, we store and process some information on cloud platforms based outside of New Zealand, including Microsoft Azure (computing platform), Microsoft 365 (productivity software) and Snowflake (data warehouse and processing). This means that information we hold about you may be transferred to, or accessed from, outside New Zealand.
We take all reasonable steps to ensure that information about you which is stored or processed by our third-party agents is protected from loss, unauthorised access and disclosure, alteration, loss or other misuse. We satisfy ourselves that our providers meet high data security standards, whether in New Zealand or outside of New Zealand.
We make reasonable efforts to ensure that the personal information we collect, use or disclose is accurate.
Whenever you provide information to us, either directly or through your representative, our records are updated.
You have the right to ask that we correct any errors or omissions in the information we hold about you.
We keep your personal information for as long as necessary to achieve the purpose for which we collected it.
If your personal information becomes part of your Kāinga Ora records, we'll keep the information in accordance with the Public Records Act 2005.
When we no longer need to retain your personal information, we will dispose of it securely, in line with our Records Retention and Disposal Policy.
We use the personal information that we collect from you to perform our lawful, everyday functions. We may use your personal information for purposes including:
- confirming your identity
- providing you with our services, such as the provision of suitable housing to people on the Social Housing Register, setting up and administering a tenancy agreement, or processing an application for a home ownership product
- improving our services, e.g., understanding our customers’ preferences while using our websites and enhancing that experience
- statistical analysis and research purposes, so long as the results will not be published in a form that could reasonably be expected to identify you.
Where we need or wish to use your personal information in a new or different way, we will only do so with your consent or when required or permitted by law.
We will not disclose your personal information to any third parties without your consent, except when required or permitted by law, including situations where the disclosure is one of the purposes for which we obtained the information. For example, we may disclose your personal information:
- to our maintenance partners and trades to enable them to carry out maintenance work on your home, e.g., your contact details, the issue that needs fixing and whether there is a dog on the property
- to utility providers to arrange for the connection and administration of key services at your home
- when either you or Kāinga Ora apply to the Tenancy Tribunal (the Tenancy Tribunal considers all disputes between landlords, including Kāinga Ora, and tenants)
- to MSD so they can perform their role as a social housing agency
- to other government agencies. This includes but is not limited to:
- New Zealand Police
- Ministry of Justice
- Department of Corrections.
- to Statistics New Zealand for statistical purposes under the Data and Statistics Act 2022
- to other family violence agencies under the Family Violence Act 2018 or to other child welfare and protection agencies under the Oranga Tamariki Act 1989
- where necessary for the investigation of offences, or where there is a serious threat to health or safety. If our staff are threatened or abused, we may refer this to the Police and disclose relevant information.
Street address information
Under the Kāinga Ora Act-Homes and Communities Act 2019, we are required to have early and meaningful engagement with communities that are affected by urban development. Community engagement involves linking with neighbours and the wider local community to ensure they are aware of our plans and the potential impacts. We engage in a variety of ways, including letter drops, community drop-in sessions, online forums, and digital tools. To engage meaningfully, we need to identify the location of our developments and this may involve releasing street address information. This means that if you occupy a newly built home, it may have been identified as a Kāinga Ora property during the engagement process. In addition, if you are in a home scheduled to undergo significant redevelopment, it could be identified as a Kāinga Ora property during the engagement process.
Personal information is required to assess your application and suitability for employment at Kāinga Ora. It will be kept, used and disclosed only in accordance with the Privacy Act 2020 and Public Records Act 2005.
All information you provide as part of your application will be treated as confidential by Kāinga Ora and used only for the purpose it was collected. If your application is successful, this information will be kept on your personal file and used for the purposes of your employment with us.
Aotal Ltd (SnapHire)
When you apply for a role at Kāinga Ora, you will submit your application via Aotal Ltd (SnapHIre), which is a web-based recruitment management system. View how Aotal Ltd(external link) manages your personal information.
As part of our commitment to providing excellent customer service, all calls to our Customer Support Centre (call-centre) are recorded and transcribed (converted into written form).
We record and transcribe calls:
- for staff training purposes
- to improve the quality of our customer service
- to ensure we have an accurate record of your call.
A new telephony system has been deployed and calls recorded between June 2024 and October 2024 will be stored until June 2025 and then securely destroyed. All other calls outside of this period will be stored for 12 months and then securely destroyed.
Requesting your call
You have the right to request access, and correction of any personal information we hold about you. See Requesting your personal information to find out how you can request a copy of your call recording or call transcription.
Cookies
We use cookies to improve your experience of our websites. Cookies are small text files which are stored by your device when you visit most websites. Cookies do not collect personal information but information which improves functionality and allows targeted marketing of products and services based on visitor preferences. You can disable them or clear them out of your web browser without affecting your ability to use the site.
Site Statistics
Google Analytics, a web analysis tool, is incorporated into our websites. Google Analytics records the following information when you visit our sites:
- the browser (eg Chrome) and operating system (eg Windows XP) you use
- the screen resolution of your PC
- the time and date you visit our site
- the pages you visit and the files you download
- the internet address you access our site from (the IP address)
- the search terms you use to find content
- the last site you visited before you came to our site.
This information is stored in a Google server. Only authorised staff within our agency can access the information.
View Google’s security and privacy principles for Google Analytics(external link).
Subscribing to Kāinga Ora email communications
When you subscribe to one of our newsletters or emails, the details you provide are stored securely.
By providing your information you are giving consent to receive emails from us, as provided for in the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007(external link).
You can unsubscribe any time and your details will be removed from the mailing list.
You have the right to request access to any personal information we hold about you. To protect your privacy and the privacy of others, we may need to verify your identity first. You can also access some information anytime using MyKāingaOra.
We will respond to your request within 20 working days after we receive it. We will let you know if we need more time to respond. If we refuse an access request, we will tell you in writing and state the reasons for refusal and outline further steps you can take.
You can request access to your personal information through any of the following channels:
- Call us on 0800 801 601
- Complete our Enquiries and Feedback form
- Talk to or email your Housing Support Manager
- Visit our Kāinga Ora offices anytime between 9am to 4pm, Monday to Friday
- Write to Kāinga Ora – Homes and Communities, PO Box 2628, Wellington 6140
- Email privacyofficer@kaingaora.govt.nz
You may also make a request using the Request My Info Tool provided by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner on its website: Office of the Privacy Commissioner | AboutMe (Request My Info Tool)(external link)
You have the right to ask for information to be corrected if you think it is wrong. We'll assess your request and respond within 20 working days after we receive it. We will either change the relevant information or explain why we think the information should not be changed. If we do not correct the information, you still have the right to have your own statement of correction attached to it and we'll make a note of your change request on your records.
To protect your privacy and the privacy of others, we may need to verify your identity first.
You can request correction of your personal information through any of the following channels:
- Complete our Enquiries and Feedback form
- Email your Housing Support Manager
- Write to Kāinga Ora – Homes and Communities, PO Box 2628, Wellington 6140
- Email privacyofficer@kaingaora.govt.nz
We use CCTV cameras in and around our public offices and some of our residential complexes. These cameras record video of customers, visitors, staff, contractors, and others nearby.
We use CCTV footage to:
- Help keep customers, visitors, staff and contractors safe
- Prevent crime and disruptive behaviour
- Respond to incidents, including:
- Health, safety and security investigations by Kāinga Ora
- Investigations by law enforcement agencies like the Police
- Kāinga Ora investigations into fraud or integrity issues
- Issues related to Standards of Integrity and Conduct
- Insurance claims by Kāinga Ora or others
Sometimes, we also review footage to help staff learn and improve how we respond to incidents.
What footage we collect
We place cameras where they help us meet our goals, while respecting people’s privacy. Our cameras record video (not sound) and run 24/7 or are triggered by movement. We don’t use facial recognition or other biometric technology.
Footage is stored securely, and only authorised staff can access it.
Who we share footage with
We only share footage when needed for the reasons listed above, or when the law permits or requires it. We may share it with:
- Law enforcement agencies investigating a possible crime
- Government agencies with legal powers to request footage
- Courts or tribunals
- Our insurers for insurance claims
- Members of the public under the Official Information Act or Privacy Act
Where possible, we’ll blur faces to protect people’s privacy.
How long we keep footage
This depends on the location and system, but we usually keep footage for about 30 days.
Your Rights
If you have been recorded on our CCTV footage, you can request to see the footage under the Privacy Act. Please complete our online form on our Contact Us page. Include the address, date, and time of the footage you're asking for.
If the footage has already been deleted, we’ll let you know.
At Kāinga Ora, we're committed to handling your personal information with care and respect. If you believe we haven’t done that, you can provide feedback or make a complaint.
Making a complaint to us
You can complain through any of the following channels:
- Call us on 0800 801 601
- Complete our Enquiries and Feedback form. Just select 'Complaint' under 'Type of enquiry'
- Talk to or email your Housing Support Manager or their Manager
- Visit our Kāinga Ora offices anytime between 9am to 4pm, Monday to Friday
- Write to Kāinga Ora – Homes and Communities, PO Box 2628, Wellington 6140.
Making a complaint to our Privacy Officer
If you want to make a complaint under the Privacy Act 2020, you may contact our Privacy Officer:
Privacy Officer
Kāinga Ora – Homes and Communities
PO Box 2628
Wellington 6140
Email: privacyofficer@kaingaora.govt.nz
Making a complaint to the Privacy Commissioner
If you are not satisfied with the Privacy Officer’s response to your concern, you may make a complaint to the Privacy Commissioner:
- Website: www.privacy.org.nz(external link)
- Phone: 0800 803 909.
If you choose to make a complaint to an external body or regulator such as the Offices of the Privacy Commissioner or Ombudsman, then we may share your information with them as part of their enquiries.
Page updated: 30 April 2026