Privacy Policy

This policy explains what personal information BrowniePoints collects, why, and what you can do about it. We follow the information privacy principles in the New Zealand Privacy Act 2020.

Who we are

BrowniePoints is published by FUNNEL SCENE PTE. LTD. (UEN 202434265D), a company registered in Singapore, at 68 Circular Road #02-01, Singapore 049422. We are responsible for personal information collected through this website. You can reach us about privacy at hello@browniepoints.co.nz.

The short version

• You can read every page without giving us any personal information.
• We don't use analytics, marketing or tracking tools, and we don't set tracking cookies.
• We only hold your personal information if you email us, plus the basic technical logs every web server keeps.
• We don't sell or rent personal information to anyone.

What we collect and why

When you email us

If you write to hello@browniepoints.co.nz, we receive your email address, your name if you include it, and whatever you put in the message. We use it only to reply, to handle a correction or removal request, and to keep a record of what we changed and why. We keep this correspondence for as long as we need it for those purposes, normally no longer than two years after the matter is closed, unless we have to keep it longer by law.

Server logs

Like almost every website, our hosting provider automatically records basic technical information when a page is requested: your IP address, the date and time, the page requested, the referring page, and your browser and device type. These logs are used to keep the site running and secure (for example, to spot abuse). We don't use them to identify or profile visitors. They are kept for a limited period set by our hosting provider.

Cookies and tracking

This site doesn't use analytics, ad-tracking pixels, social-media widgets or other third-party tracking, and it doesn't set cookies to track you. Our fonts and images are served from our own site. If we ever add analytics or cookies, we will update this policy first and say so here.

Links to other sites

Our pages link to business websites, Google Maps and public registers. If you follow a link, the other site's own privacy policy applies, and it may collect information about you. We don't control those sites.

Information about businesses

Our lists are about businesses, not private individuals. We only publish business information that the business itself has made public or that is on a public record:

• the business name, website, business phone number, and suburb or business address;
• the business's public Google rating and number of Google reviews, with the date we fetched them;
• whether we found a matching record on the NZ Companies Office register, with a link to it;
• for licensed trades, whether we confirmed a current licence on the relevant public register (PGDB, EWRB or LBP), and the date we checked.

Many trades businesses are run by sole traders, so some of this information can also be about an individual. We keep it to the minimum: we don't publish home addresses, personal email addresses or personal phone numbers, including those shown on licence registers, and we use public registers only to confirm that a licence exists. We don't publish individual reviews or reviewers' names.

Google ratings are refreshed at least every 30 days. Our research notes (for example, which register record we matched) are kept privately so we can show our working if a listing is questioned.

If you run a listed business and think something we publish is wrong, out of date, or is personal information that shouldn't be there, email hello@browniepoints.co.nz. See how corrections work.

Where your information is stored

Our company is registered in Singapore, and we use hosting and email service providers who may store information on servers outside New Zealand. When we send personal information overseas, we take reasonable steps to make sure it is protected in a way that, overall, is comparable to the protection under the New Zealand Privacy Act 2020.

Who we share it with

We share personal information only with the service providers who run the site and our email (for example, our hosting provider), only as needed for them to provide that service, or where the law requires it. We don't sell, rent or trade personal information.

Keeping it safe

We take reasonable steps to protect personal information from loss, misuse and unauthorised access. The site is served over HTTPS and holds no user accounts or passwords.

Your rights

You can ask us for a copy of the personal information we hold about you, and ask us to correct it. Email hello@browniepoints.co.nz. We will respond as soon as we reasonably can, and within 20 working days. We may need to confirm who you are first. There's no charge.

Complaints

If you're unhappy with how we've handled your personal information, please tell us first so we can try to fix it. You can also complain to the New Zealand Office of the Privacy Commissioner at privacy.org.nz.

Changes to this policy

If we change how we handle personal information, we'll update this page and the "Last updated" date above.