Privacy statement

This privacy statement applies to any personal and other information collected on the Ministry for the Environment’s website at environment.govt.nz. 

Like most website owners, we collect statistical information via Google Analytics about your visit to help us improve our website. This information is used for no other purpose and all users are anonymous. We collect information on:

• IP addresses
• search terms
• pages accessed and links clicked
• dates and times of visits
• the immediate previous site visited
• operating systems
• web browsers.

You may browse and access information contained within the website without providing any personal information. Where you voluntarily provide personal information, for example through online forms, email requests, or forums, we will use that information only for the purpose for which you provide it and for the purpose of detecting abuse of this website. We will not disclose any personal information you provide to a third party without your permission.

Any forums, wikis, blogs and other social media hosted by the Ministry for the Environment will have their own privacy and security statements which you should read before taking part.

The Ministry will hold all information you provide in accordance with the Privacy Act 2020.

If you would like to access and/or correct any personal information we hold, please contact:

Privacy Officer
Ministry for the Environment
PO Box 10362
Wellington 6143
New Zealand

or email info@mfe.govt.nz.

Some parts of this website allow you to make submissions on a variety of topics. If you choose to make a submission, the Ministry for the Environment may publish all or part of any submission on this website. We will consider you to have consented to such publishing by making a submission, unless you indicate otherwise on the online submission form in the boxes provided.

Information supplied in submissions is subject to the Official Information Act 1982 (OIA). Copies of submissions made to the Ministry for the Environment will normally be released in full in response to an OIA request received from a member of the public. If you object to the release of information contained in your submission, please clearly state this in your submission (in the ‘Objections to release of information’ box), including which part(s) you consider should be withheld, together with the reason(s) for withholding the information. We will take into account all such objections when responding to requests for copies of, and information on, submissions to this document.

When you subscribe to our newsletters, the details you provide are stored in a secure third-party database called Mailchimp which is a third-party email marketing platform. We will only use your personal information for managing your subscription and assessing newsletter effectiveness.

Mailchimp provides analytics to the Ministry for the Environment on how people interact with our newsletters including how many subscribers have opened emails or clicked on links. This means that the Ministry and Mailchimp will be able to see your email address and details about which newsletters you have opened and links you have clicked in Ministry newsletters you have subscribed to. The Ministry will only use this information to assess newsletter effectiveness.

The Ministry will not share your email addresses with any third-party suppliers.

You can unsubscribe from our newsletters at any time. When you unsubscribe from our newsletters, your details will be deleted from the database on a regular basis.

You can also change your email preferences at any time.

For more information, see the Mailchimp privacy policy.