Privacy

When you use Z, you trust us with your personal information. We're proud to take on the responsibility of protecting your data and keeping you in control of it.

Last updated on 15 July 2024

This privacy policy sets out how we (the Z Group) will handle personal information we collect about you, including through the Z website, all versions of Z App, through Z Power as your electricity retailer, onsite through our CCTV system, and through phone, email and other channels.

In this policy, Z Group means Z Energy Limited and its subsidiaries, as those terms are used in the Companies Act 1993, but this policy does not apply when you’re dealing directly with Caltex (ZE 2015) or with Flick Energy Limited, because they have their own privacy policies.

What is ‘personal information’?

In this privacy policy, 'Personal information' has the meaning given to it in the Privacy Act 2020 (information about an identifiable individual).

Changes we can make to this policy

We can change this privacy policy at any time by publishing an updated version on the Z Energy website. We recommend you regularly check our website for updates. If you continue to use this website or if you provide any personal information after we post changes to this Privacy Policy, this will indicate your acceptance of any changes.

Other important terms you should know about

Our Z Business terms are found here , our Z App terms are here and our Z Power terms are here. If you use Z App or are a Z Business customer, we urge you to read these terms carefully. They contain important terms about your personal information, that are additional to the terms of this Privacy Policy.

What we collect

We collect personal information about you when:

you enter or upload information in Z App
you enter or upload information in the Z website
you use, enter or upload information through the process of joining as a Z Power customer
you provide us information over the phone or email (for example, when you contact our call centre)
you provide us information through other channels (for example, through social media)
you enter our physical sites and offices, through our use of CCTV cameras.

Sometimes, we may collect personal information about you from a third party source that you have authorised (such as a loyalty partner, a credit agency where you have authorised us to conduct a credit check), other third parties involved in your electricity supply (such as your network company, meter equipment owners and your previous retailer through the Electricity Registry), or as otherwise permitted by law.

We may collect information about you from a Z Business promoter, where you have applied for Z Business through that promoter, or have applied through Z’s channels and have quoted your membership number or relationship with that promoter.

Personal information we collect may include your name, address, telephone numbers, contact details, payment details or other financial information, information on how you use our products and services, information about your property, information regarding your electricity consumption at your property (including smart meter data), and information about your membership of loyalty programmes. If you use Z App, your personal information may include your location data and device information.

Where applicable, we may also collect personal information from you in relation to assisting us with carrying out our responsibilities under the Electricity Authority’s Consumer Care Guidelines. More information on these guidelines can be found here.

Closed Circuit Television (CCTV)

We use CCTV cameras at many of our sites, including at retail stations, terminals, and at our corporate offices. Information we collect through our CCTV camera system includes your image and may include your vehicle number plate. We collect all vehicle number plate information that comes through our forecourts through CCTV.

Audio-recording

We use audio recording at approximately 6 Z stations nationwide. Those stations have prominent signage stating that audio may be being recorded.

Smart meter data

You will need to have a smart meter at your property to be a Z Power customer. Smart meters are different from analogue meters in that they record electricity use in half-hour periods (rather than simply recording total electricity consumption). When smart meter consumption data is linked to your personal information then it also becomes personal information. We treat smart meter data, like all personal information, in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

What happens if you do not provide personal information

If you do not provide us with personal information that we request, you may not be able to enjoy some or all of Z’s services.

Why we collect it, and what we use it for

We collect and use your personal information for various purposes:

to provide you goods and services
to improve and refine our products and services
to set up and administer your Z Business account, Z Power account and Z App account
to set up and administer any loyalty programme (run by us or one of our loyalty partners) that you have joined or wish to join
to feed into other services that have integrated with Z Group (for example, Xero)
supplying you with electricity and other services you have requested
interacting and communicating with you on social media, dealing with your requests, enquiries or complaints and other customer care related activities
complying with our obligations to you and other third parties involved in the supply of electricity to you and your property
to assist with resolution of technical support issues or other issues relating to our technology, including the website and Z App
to carry out credit checking and scoring
billing you (unless you pay by another agreed method) and collecting any debt owed to us by you
to verify your identity and assist you in case you forget your password or login details where these are necessary to access any of our products or services
to carry out any activity in connection with a legal, governmental or regulatory requirement on us, or in connection with legal proceedings, crime, or fraud prevention, detection or prosecution
to target our advertising, and to identify and inform you about products, services, surveys, promotion and offers most likely to be of interest to you, or any other communications that you have opted in to receive
for internal research, development and optimization of the Z website, products and services, and to develop our understanding of our customers’ preferences and interests
to comply with Aotearoa New Zealand laws and any applicable overseas laws
to manage our relationship with you, and to exercise and enforce our rights, including under our website and Z App terms of use, under our Z power terms, and under our Z Business terms
to contact you and support you if we think you have had an unpleasant experience with a Z product or service, or if we think Z has not met your expectations
at our audio-recording sites, we will use audio-recordings we collect to identify instances of offensive verbal behaviour or other abuse, investigate incidents, and protect people on our premises
general administrative and business purposes

Electronic communications as your electricity retailer

We regularly send our Z power customers information. We may do this by email or text message. For example, we send notifications about energy you have used, and price alerts. We may also send you by email newsletters or other information we think you may be interested in. By agreeing to this privacy policy, you consent to us sending you these messages. Newsletters and other information you receive will have instructions for how you can unsubscribe from that mailing list, which you may do at any time. If you ask to be removed from a mailing list, we will do this. Alternatively, you can control the level of electronic communication you receive by calling us. You cannot opt out of receiving information that we are obligated to provide to you as your electricity supplier.

If you enter your details to sign up to become a Z Power customer but you do not successfully complete the sign-up process, or your application for electricity supply is declined, we may contact you to see if we can help you finish signing up and / or to get your feedback. If we do this, we will use the personal details you have entered on the sign up page to contact you.

CCTV

We use information collected through our CCTV cameras for several reasons:

detecting, deterring, and preventing criminal or offensive behaviour at our sites and offices (including detecting, deterring, and preventing suspicious, inappropriate or unauthorised use of a Z Business fuel card or other card)
monitoring the safety and security of our staff, our customers and our sites
completing incident investigations
providing you with our pay by plate service
to support claims for insurance, for example where a vehicle is damaged at a forecourt and an insurer requests information about the damage
for internal use in development and optimisation of Z products and services

Anonymised information

We may also use personal information in an anonymised aggregated form, to carry out analysis of our products, services and customer interactions (including how our website and Z App are used).

Promotions and offers

Where we use your information to communicate with you by email or text about products, services and promotions that we think may be of interest to you, you can choose to stop receiving such emails or texts by using the unsubscribe function in the message. You can also contact us to be removed from the database.

Sharing your personal information

We may provide your personal information to:

our parent company and other related companies, whether incorporated in New Zealand or elsewhere
our employees, contractors, advisors, agents, and third party service providers
our loyalty partners (Air New Zealand and Loyalty New Zealand) where you are a member of that programme and have chosen to link it with your use of Z services
credit reference agencies (unless we have agreed otherwise), who may share your information with other organisations and who may keep a record of the searches we make against your name
third party agencies, if we want to recover money from you when you have not paid us, or if we want to list any payment defaults with a credit agency
Z Business account holders, where you use or control business card connected to their account (for example, your employer), and Z Business promoters
another electricity supplier, if you are switching to another electricity supplier or if any contracts you have with us are otherwise transferred
a network company which has requested the information or we are obliged to provide it to them
a metering equipment provider which has requested information in order to contact you in relation to metering equipment installed or to be installed on your property
to a person involved in facilitating dispute resolution, where it is necessary to assist to resolve a complaint you make about us
our third party business partners including, marketing and advertising companies, data processing companies and data analysis companies to conduct sales, marketing and advertising research and analysis on our behalf so that we can better understand your preferences, carry out business improvement analysis, and present you with suitable offers that you might be interested in (we contractually obligate these third parties to protect the confidentiality of customer survey information).

We may release personal information where we think this is appropriate for legal compliance and law enforcement (including to government agencies with statutory law enforcement responsibilities), to facilitate court proceedings, enforce or apply our Z Business terms, Z App terms, Z website terms, Z power terms, or other terms that apply between you and us, or to protect our company, our customers, or others.

If we suspect you have committed offensive behaviour towards a site or office or to any of our people, we may disclose your information to your employer or supervisor (including CCTV footage or images or audio recordings).

We may provide your information to insurers (including CCTV footage), in order to facilitate insurance claims in respect of Z or others.

We can also release personal information to third parties as instructed by you, and in other ways permitted by the Privacy Act.

Other than as outlined above, we will not share your information with anyone else. This includes information about your Z Power account with anyone living at the property, unless they are named as a customer or authorised person on the account, or the person (or agency) is listed as your nominated alternate contact person.

Vehicle number plates

Our CCTV cameras collect all vehicle number plate information that comes through our forecourts. We provide this information to the New Zealand Police, who cross-check it against their register for stolen vehicles.

Where the occupant(s) of a vehicle have failed to pay the full amount for goods and services obtained from Z, the registered owner's name and address may be obtained from the motor vehicle register. This will be used for the purpose of corresponding with the registered owner of the vehicle about the failure to pay and seeking payment or refer the information to a debt collector for the lawful collection of debt. Any person can notify the Registrar of Motor Vehicles that they do not wish to have their name and address made available under the authorisation. See Gazette Notice 2022-au4071.

Third party software used in Z App

Z App uses various third party software components and services, including software and applications installed on your mobile device or used by your mobile device’s native operating system to provide Z App services to you. These third party software components may have their own terms of use and privacy policies. We urge you to read these documents carefully.

When we will share your personal information

We will only share your personal information where we believe this is appropriate to help us with any of the purposes outlined above. We will take reasonable steps to ensure that those recipients do not use that personal information for any other purpose.

How we store your personal information

We will store your personal information we collect from you in accordance with our obligations under the Privacy Act and will take reasonable steps to ensure the security of your personal information.

Your personal information may be stored on servers owned by our computing infrastructure provider (currently Microsoft), under an account we control. You can access Microsoft’s privacy policy here. The address of Microsoft’s Wellington office is Level 12,157 Lambton Quay, Wellington, New Zealand.

Card security

When you use your credit or debit card on our website, the credit or debit card information is transmitted using Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protocol, which encrypts your information. We keep only some of your credit or debit card details. Your full credit or debit card details will be encrypted and securely stored by our online payment provider.

Storage of CCTV footage and audio

We usually retain CCTV footage and audio recordings for a period of 30 days. We may retain CCTV footage and audio for longer if required by law, or if we think doing so is appropriate to help us with any of the purposes outlined above.

Right to access your personal information

You have rights under the New Zealand Privacy Act to find out what personal information we hold about you, to get a copy of that information, and/or to ask us to consider correcting or deleting that information. If you would like to do any of those things, or for further information about our privacy policy, please contact us.

Where you provide us information about others

If you provide us with personal information about someone else, you must ensure that you are authorised to disclose that information to us, so that, without us taking further steps required by applicable data protection or privacy laws, we may collect, use and disclose such information for the purposes described in this privacy policy.

You must take reasonable steps to ensure the relevant individual is aware of and agrees to the matters set out in this policy, including the fact their information is being collected, the purposes for which that information is being collected, the intended recipients of their information, their rights to access their information, and our name and contact details.

Cookies

We may use cookies (and other interactive techniques, such as web beacons) when you are on the Z website or other websites we control. A cookie is a small block of text stored on your device. They allow us to recognise your internet browser as you move around our sites.

We use these tools to serve you better and more efficiently, customise services on our website to help with navigation, monitor usage and to help personalise your experience, and sometimes to help identify you for security reasons. We also use these tools in the delivery of our or our partner’s online advertising. Any information we collect and share with third parties through cookies is aggregated and anonymised.

Some web browsers enable you to decline the receipt of cookies and similar technologies. If you utilise this function you may not be able to make full use of the Z Group’s websites.

Analytics

To improve our Z website, App, and our advertising, we use analytics tools (including third party cookies) to collect certain information. Information we collect through analytics tools may include your IP address, page requests, form requests, click activity, and the timing and frequency of your use of our websites and App.

We use Google Analytics, which uses information to perform statistical analysis of aggregate user behaviour. We use Google’s analysis to measure advertising effectiveness and relative consumer interest in the various areas of our websites and to present relevant advertising on our website(s) or third-party websites where we advertise. We may disclose the information collected by Google Analytics, in an aggregate, anonymised (not personal) form only, to third parties including advertisers or potential advertisers. Read Google's privacy policy.

Questions

If you have any questions, comments or concerns about our privacy policy, please contact us.