Privacy Statement

This information is designed to assist you in understanding how we collect and use the personal information you provide to us and to assist you in making informed decisions when interacting with us.

Barfoot & Thompson Limited (NZCN 75655) of Level 7, 34 Shortland Street, City, Auckland (“Barfoot & Thompson”, “we”, “us”, “our”) is committed to complying with the Privacy Act 2020 and to good practice standards for privacy and security whenever we collect, hold, use, or share information.

Our policies also cover how we look after confidential and/or commercially sensitive information provided to us. Confidential and/or commercially sensitive information includes information about corporate entities (e.g. companies) and financial information.

What information do we collect?

We collect information from you when you interact with us, like attending open homes, making inquiries about properties, selling or buying with us, signing up to newsletters, and when you visit our website, check out our social media channels, or use our applications.

It will usually be obvious when we collect information from you, in forms, registers, correspondence, or on sign-up pages. This will usually identify you. We may ask for your consent to collect information about you from other people.

Our digital channels will also collect information about peoples’ interactions using cookies and other digital tools. We only use this on an aggregate basis for the purposes set out in this policy.

You chose to provide us with the information outlined in this statement, so we can provide you with the services you are after from us. We aim to make why we need to collect the information from you (i.e. the purpose) clear before you provide it to us. We will also tell you where you must provide us with details and where it is voluntary or beneficial for you to provide us those details.

Further details about information we collect and how we may use it is included below.

What we do with the information we gather

We use the information you provide for our business purposes, to understand your needs and provide you with a better service. Our purposes for collecting personal information are:

Sale and purchase of residential/rural and commercial real estate including recording attendance at a property, interest in a listing, facilitating an agreement for sale and purchase, valuations, itemised chattels, photos, and any other record of interactions with a person or their property.
To provide property management and body corporate management services including undertaking background checks on potential tenants and any information created about a person as part of providing services.
Internal business management purposes including internal record keeping, and to monitor, measure, and improve our own business practices. This also includes checking our processes are being followed, managing, training and developing our personnel, and improving or customising our products and services.
Marketing and promoting our real estate services and current and future properties to clients, customers and potential customers including advertising, direct marketing, other promotions, and social media engagement, and for maintaining a connection or relationships through the provision of market information, news, and/or events.
Conducting market research and surveys. Contact information can be used to make initial contact and invite participation in market research and survey activities. Where the individual opts-in to participating, the information gathered may then be used to provide insights into real estate market activities.
To comply with all relevant laws, where these are required for the above purposes including requirements to record and report transactions under anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing laws, maintain records for real estate agent code of conduct regulation and tax purposes, and to comply with any lawfully issued notice to provide information to a regulatory agency, including the New Zealand Police and Serious Fraud Office.

Personal information you choose to provide:

Sign-up information
You will be asked to provide us with information about yourself, your firm or company, when you register for certain services, such as email newsletters and alerts, or to save properties of interest to you on our website or our app. You may also provide additional comments on how you see Barfoot & Thompson servicing your needs and interests. You can unsubscribe to newsletters and alerts at any time.

Email information
If you choose to correspond with us through email, we may retain the content of your email messages together with your email address and our responses.

Email newsletters you sign up for
When you sign up to email newsletters we may track your interaction with the emails we send for the purposes of improving the content we deliver you. You can unsubscribe to email newsletters at any time.

Your needs, interests, and preferences
We will use the interactions you have with us to better understand your needs and preferences, so we can offer you the best services we can.

Digital use information
Cookie and tracking technologies are used for gathering unidentified information such as browser type and operating system, tracking the number of visitors to the website, and understanding how visitors use the website.
We may use cookie and tracking technology depending on the features offered. Cookies also help us to customise the website for visitors. You can turn off Cookies in your computer settings but this may affect your experience of our website.
We use Google Analytics features that associate anonymous data from the Google accounts of signed-in users who have consented to this association for the purposes of personalised advertising.

Third party vendors, including Google and Facebook, show our ads on sites on the internet
Third party vendors, including Google and Facebook, may use cookies on our website to serve ads on other sites on the internet based on a user’s prior visits to our website
Users may opt out of Google’s use of cookies by visiting the Google advertising opt-out page and control the way that Facebook shows ads using Facebook’s ad settings
Google account holders may view and control their activity by visiting their My Activity page

Where you agree to allow the app to access your location on a mobile device, we may use that information to show you properties around you and give you more relevant search results. Your location information is used only by the app in real time and is not stored by us.

Social media information
When you follow or like our social media channels or like, comment on, share or otherwise interact with any of our content on our social media channels, you may provide information to us about yourself, including your name, profile information and profile picture. The information you make available can often be controlled through the settings for your account on the relevant social media platform.
Our social media channels are public and everything you share on our posts can be seen by everyone else. Please do not share any personal, confidential or sensitive information when posting on any of our social media channels.

Note: the privacy practices set forth in this privacy statement are for our services, website, our social media channels, and applications only. If you click on links to other websites, please review the privacy policies posted at those sites. In addition, your access and use of the social media platforms that we use (including Facebook, Youtube, Linkedin, Pinterest and Twitter) will be subject to the terms and conditions and privacy policies of the companies that operate those platforms.

Distribution of information

Barfoot & Thompson may share personal information with the third parties we work with to provide or promote our products and services, including using techniques to identify potential audiences for our products and services. Your personal information will only be shared on a confidential basis for the purposes of our business and promotions only and the third party is not permitted to use the information to promote their own products and services.

From time to time, our agents may transfer personal information between themselves, for example, where an agent moves regions and provides their local contacts to an agent in the area they have left. In this case, you should expect the opportunity to ‘opt out’ of the new agent holding and using your information.

Barfoot & Thompson may share personal information with governmental agencies or other companies assisting us in fraud prevention or investigation. We may do so when: (1) permitted or required by law; or, (2) trying to protect against or prevent actual or potential fraud or unauthorised transactions; or, (3) investigating fraud which has already taken place. Personal information is not provided to these entities for marketing purposes.

We will otherwise only share your information with other parties with your consent or direction.

Commitment to Data Security

We have put in place physical, electronic and organisational processes to protect your personally identifiable information. Only authorised employees, agents and contractors (who have agreed to keep information secure and confidential) are granted access to this information. All emails and newsletters from this site allow you to opt out of further mailings.

We use service providers to process information you provide to us. Data will be stored in overseas jurisdictions (Philippines, United States) as well as New Zealand. We enter into agreements with our service providers to require your data to be protected to the same standard as it would be in New Zealand and ensure your privacy is maintained. The jurisdiction your data is stored in does not affect your privacy rights (as described below).

Your Privacy Rights

You have the right to find out and see what personal information we hold about you and to request correction of that information.

You can make requests by contacting the agent or Branch you believe holds information about you.

Note for European and Californian residents – you can request deletion of the personal information we hold about you by sending us an email detailing your request.

You will be notified as soon as practicable of any breach involving your personal information where we believe it has caused serious harm or is likely to do so.

If you have any questions about how we manage your personal information, please contact us. Please report any problems, issues, or concerns about privacy to a Branch Manager.

Please note Barfoot & Thompson may change this policy from time to time by updating this page. You should check this page from time to time to ensure that you are happy with any changes.

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