Privacy policy

The Theosophical Society of New Zealand Inc. (TSNZ) (we, us or our) is committed to protecting and maintaining the privacy, accuracy and security of your personal information. This privacy policy sets out details of how we collect, use, store and disclose your personal information. By:

accessing and using our website;
becoming a member of TSNZ or one of our branches;
signing up to receive our newsletters or other communications; or
otherwise accessing our events, products and services,

you consent to the collection, use, storage and disclosure of your personal information in accordance with this policy.

HOW WE COLLECT YOUR INFORMATION
We will only collect personal information relevant to our relationship with you. The personal information we collect will generally include your name, address, telephone numbers, email address, bank account details, signature of guardian if joining and under 18, membership status including date of joining/rejoining, diploma number, branch or lodge membership, newsletter subscription details including name and email address and information relevant to your attendance at our events. You may choose to not provide us with this information, but not doing so may affect our ability to offer you membership or provide you with our products and services.

We will collect this information directly from you when you:

apply for membership, and subsequently in connection with your membership;
register to receive our newsletters, products or services;
attend our meetings and/or events;
use our products and services; or
communicate or interact with us, whether by email, telephone or otherwise.

You are required to keep us informed of changes to your information to enable us to have proper administrative
processes.
We may also collect aggregated information generated by our system, which tracks your use of our products and services but does not identify you personally.

COOKIES
Our website uses server logs and web analytic tools (such as “cookies”). Cookies are small text files that are downloaded to your device by websites that you visit. When you use our website, these tools collect information such as the browser and operating system that you use, the internet protocol address of the device you use to access the site, search terms, your location and the content that you view when visiting the website.

You can set your browser to block all cookies, including cookies associated with our website, or to indicate when a cookie is being set by us. If you set your browser to reject cookies you may not be able to access all the features of the website.

HOW WE USE YOUR INFORMATION

We may use your personal information to:

identify you, so we can ensure that we are dealing with the correct person and verify your membership status
provide our products and services to you
communicate with you, including providing you with details of our events and copies of our magazines and newsletters
carry out the business of our organisation which includes maintaining your membership, collecting subscription and other fees, planning, hosting events and meetings, sending you voting slips and other TSNZ election related information, research and analysis
protect and/or enforce members’ legal rights and interests;
conduct any disciplinary or other proceedings in accordance with our Constitution;
fulfil our legal requirements (for example, disclosure to law enforcement agencies or the courts); or
for any related purpose in connection with the above.

We may use any information that we collect from you that is not personal information (so you cannot be personally identified from it) for our purposes, including:

to assess how our members access our events,products and services;
evaluate visits to our website;
to improve our events, products and services; or
for marketing and promotional purposes.

MARKETING

We may use your information to offer you events, products and services that we believe meet your needs. You can notify us at any time if you do not wish to receive these offers by emailing us at office@theosophy.org.nz or writing to us at 18 Belvedere Street, Epsom, Auckland 1051. We will act promptly on any such request.

WHO WE MAY DISCLOSE YOUR INFORMATION TO
We may disclose information we retain about you, including your personal information, to the following persons or their agents:

our employees, contractors, and any relevant Theosophical Society branch or lodge within New Zealand;
the Theosophical Society’s International Headquarters in Adyar, Chennai, India, for their records;
third parties engaged by us to perform specific functions for our business, such as contracted database and website developers
service providers engaged by us, for data storage, IT and software management, accounting and auditing purposes.
Government departments or law enforcement agencies (including the Police)
debt collection services or credit reporting agencies.

Some of the persons listed above may be located overseas. We will only transfer your personal information to a recipient that is obliged to protect your personal information with comparable safeguards to those contained in the Privacy Act 2020.

We will not disclose, sell or transfer to third parties any personal or non-personal, aggregated information that we collect from you and our other customers.

YOUR INFORMATION IS SECURE
We will take reasonable steps to keep your personal information secure and confidential. This includes the following:

only our staff and those who perform services on our behalf, and are authorised to handle your information, will have access to your personal information;
we will not retain any of your information for any longer than it is required by us except to fulfil our legal obligations or where you have consented; and
we will, with your help, keep your personal information accurate, complete and up-to-date.

ADVERTISING AND THIRD PARTY LINKS
Our website may contain links to a variety of third party website sources. Some of these links may request or record
information from users or use cookies or other methods to collect information from you. We have no control over the content or privacy policy practices of those sites and encourage you to review the privacy policies of those sites before using them.

YOU HAVE ACCESS TO YOUR INFORMATION
You can access most of the personal information we hold about you and request corrections. This right is subject to some exceptions, for example, you may not obtain access to information relating to existing or anticipated legal proceedings.

You can request access to your information by emailing us at office@theosophy.org.nz or writing to us at 18 Belvedere Street, Epsom, Auckland 1051. This service is free unless the information you request requires significant research or preparation time. Before we act upon requests of this nature, we will tell you how much this service will cost.

WHAT TO DO IF YOU THINK WE HAVE MADE AN ERROR
We are committed to protecting your privacy and our policies, processes and systems have been developed with this in mind. However, if you think we have made an error, please email us at np@theosophy.org.nz or write to us at: National President, The Theosophical Society in NZ, 18 Belvedere Street, Epsom, Auckland 1051 to let us know. Where we have made an error, we will endeavour to correct the error as soon as reasonably practicable.

QUESTIONS AND COMPLAINTS
If you have a question or complaint about the way we have dealt with your personal information, please contact us by email or in writing at the addresses above. We will endeavour to respond promptly to your question or complaint.

BREACHES OF YOUR PRIVACY
We take our privacy responsibilities seriously. In the unlikely event that a suspected or actual breach of your personal data occurs, we will investigate the breach. We will notify you and the Privacy Commissioner if we reasonably believe that the breach has caused you serious harm, or is likely to cause you serious harm.

CHANGES TO POLICY
We may change this policy at any time by publishing the amended policy on our website. We will endeavour to inform you of any changes to the policy by email or on the website.

RELATED POLICY
Privacy policy - internal