Privacy Notice

This Privacy Notice applies when you use Akahu Apply, which may involve you uploading PDF documents or granting one-off consent for Akahu to access your account(s).

This plain English section is here to provide a simple explanation of the most important questions that you might have about Akahu Apply. However this plain English section is not legally binding. The remaining sections of this Privacy Notice below are the legal terms that apply.

• Consent: Akahu will obtain your consent before carrying out any instruction regarding your financial accounts.
• Privacy: Akahu does NOT sell or rent your data for research or marketing purposes. Your data is processed and shared with the entity ('Third Party Service') that you explicitly grant access to, and is not sold to other entities.
• Storing your data: If you provide your data to us or grant one-off consent for Akahu to access your data from financial account(s), we will delete any personal information within 30 days of that data being archived by the relevant Third Party Service, or within 365 days, whichever happens first.

Welcome to Akahu Apply. We take the privacy and protection of your data seriously. We want you to clearly understand how we collect, use, store, disclose, and otherwise process information about you. That's what this privacy notice is for, so please read it carefully and feel free to contact us if you have any questions - our contact details are at the end of this notice.

In this notice, 'Akahu', 'Akahu Apply', 'we', 'us' and 'our' is Akahu Technologies Limited and 'you' and 'your' is you - the person using Akahu Apply.

If you decide to connect your financial accounts using Akahu Apply, you should also read our End User Terms, as they are an agreement between you and us, and include important information about your use of our services.

We may update this notice from time to time, and the updated notice will apply from the time it is posted to our website. You may view an up-to-date copy of this notice at any time at akahu.nz/privacy-notice-for-akahu-apply. If you do not agree to any changes, you must stop using our services.

You may choose not to provide us with information about you, but if you don't, we may not be able to provide any of our services to you, and functionality within a Third Party Service that relies on our services may not be available to you.

To understand what information we collect and how we use it, you first need to understand how our services work. This is set out in detail in our End User Terms, but we’ve included a summary below.

Akahu is an open finance platform. We make it simple to connect your financial data to Third Parties Services.

For example, you could choose to upload data or connect your bank account via Akahu Apply in order to collate financial data as part of a loan application.

For Third Party Services: Akahu enables functionality for Third Party Services, such as:

• Aggregating transaction data and balances from accounts you connect or upload to Akahu Apply (such as your bank and KiwiSaver accounts).
• Verifying your identity and bank account details.
• Processing PDF banks statements and other documents that you upload.

For you: Akahu Apply provides an interface for you to connect your financial accounts and consent to exchanging specified data with Third Party Services. If you provide a Third Party Service with access to data from your account(s), you will upload or connect the relevant account(s) to Akahu Apply, then Akahu Apply will process and make the specified data available to the Third Party Service.

Third Party Services that collect your data will do so in accordance with their own terms and privacy policies - you should read those terms and policies carefully as we do not control how Third Party Services engage with you or use your data.

We collect the following types of information.

Information you provide which may include:

• Identification details, such as your name, email address, and phone number.
• Details of accounts you choose to connect to Akahu Apply, such as login information and credentials for those accounts, which may include tokens, passwords, and answers to security questions.
• Documents that you upload to Akahu Apply.
• Any written communications with us such as queries or instructions.

Information we collect from accounts you connect to Akahu Apply, which may include:

• Account information, such as the provider name, account name, account type, account ownership, branch, account number, and account metadata.
• Financial information, such as balances, payment due dates, transaction details and history, credit limits, and product details.
• Identifiers and information about the account owner(s), including name, email address, phone number, date of birth, tax number, address information, and other personal identifiers.
• Information about usage, such as your energy consumption if you link your power company account, or data usage if you link your mobile phone account.

Information we receive from your device: when you use your device to connect to Akahu Apply, we receive identifiers and electronic network activity information about that device, including IP address, hardware model, operating system, which Akahu Apply features you access, and other technical information about the device. We also use cookies or similar tracking technologies to collect usage statistics and to help us provide and improve our service.

Information we receive from other sources: we may receive information about you directly from Third Party Services and other third parties, including our service providers and identity verification services.

When you agree to our End User Terms and connect an account to Akahu Apply, you give us the authority to act on your behalf to exchange your data to and from the provider of the accounts you have connected to Akahu Apply within the scope of this Privacy Notice.

When you grant consent for Akahu Apply to exchange specific data with a Third Party Service, our most common use is to exchange that data between the account(s) you have connected to Akahu Apply and that Third Party Service.

We may also use your information:

• To operate, provide, and maintain Akahu Apply.
• To improve Akahu Apply, for example by training our systems to better identify and enrich raw transaction data.
• To develop new services, for example by assessing raw data for patterns that could enable new functionality.
• To protect you, us, Third Party Services, and others from fraud, malicious activity, and other privacy and security-related concerns.
• To communicate with you regarding Akahu Apply or Third Party Services.
• To provide customer support to you or to Third Party Services, including to respond to your inquiries related to Akahu Apply or Third Party Services.
• To investigate any potential misuse of Akahu Apply or Third Party Services, including criminal activity, or other unauthorised access to our services.
• To provide or facilitate verification of your identity.
• To comply with laws.
• For other notified purposes with your consent.

We may share your information:

• With Third Party Services that you have granted consent for Akahu Apply to share your data with.
• With our service providers, partners, or contractors in connection with the services they perform for us or Third Party Services.
• If we believe that disclosure is appropriate to comply with applicable law, regulation, or legal process.
• In connection with a change in ownership or control of all or a part of our business.
• Between us and our current and future related companies.
• As we consider appropriate to protect the rights, privacy, safety, or property of you, us, Third Party Services, and others.
• For any other notified purpose with your consent.

Sometimes the people we disclose your information to will be located outside New Zealand and may not be subject to laws that provide a comparable level of protection to New Zealand's Privacy Act 2020 (Privacy Act). By using Akahu Apply or a Third Party Service, you are authorising us to transfer your personal information overseas. We will use reasonable endeavours to ensure people we disclose your information to overseas protect it in a way comparable to the protections under the Privacy Act, such as including provisions in our contracts with them or by checking to ensure they are subject to laws with equivalent protections.

Many organisations verify the identity of their customers before they provide services to them.

To streamline identity verification processes, Akahu Apply enables Third Party Services to access your data (with your consent) from your uploaded files or connected account(s) (such as your bank account) and other sources (such as information we collect directly from you), to help you to verify your identity electronically.

For example, a Third Party Service may request your name, date of birth, address, and your driver licence details, which Akahu Apply may help to collect and/or verify from data sources that you connect to Akahu Apply.

Your information will be stored in data centres that are owned either by us or our related companies, or by our external service providers. We currently use Australian-based data centres managed by Amazon Web Services. A range of physical and electronic data security measures are used to protect information from loss and unauthorised use, access, modification, or disclosure.

We will delete your information when we no longer need it for the purposes for which it was collected.

When you use Akahu Apply:

• We do not store or retain any data related to accessing accounts that you grant access to, such as login credentials.
• We delete any personal information within 30 days of that data being archived by the relevant Third Party Service, or within 365 days, whichever happens first.

Akahu Apply retains records of application logs such as IP address, user-agent, and timestamps.

Akahu Apply will not delete information that we are required by law or regulatory obligations to retain.

You can request access to and correction of personal information we hold about you by contacting us - our details are at the end of this notice.

Under the Privacy Act, in some circumstances we do not have to give you access to or correct your personal information. If that is the case, we will explain why and provide information about how you can complain should you wish to do so.

We hope that you won't have any issues with how we process your data, but if you do, you can get hold of us using the contact details at the end of this notice. We'll do our best to work with you to resolve the complaint.

You can also complain to the Privacy Commissioner if you're not happy with how we're handling things - see privacy.org.nz for more details.

We're always keen to hear from you. You can get hold of us at hello@akahu.nz.