Privacy Policy

Your information and confidentially

Black Box Power
PO Box 10044, Dominion Rd, Auckland, 1446
Level 5, 33 Enfield St, Mt Eden, Auckland, New Zealand, 1024
0800 269 769

This Privacy Policy has been created to inform You how we (Black Box Power) collect your personal information, how We store it, how you can access it and when we might disclose information to third parties. We may also obtain information about you and your energy supply including historic meter reading information from relevant third parties before you become our customer and at any point while you are our customer. This may include credit checking or reporting agencies, government agencies such as the Ministry of Justice, Work and Income, New Zealand Police and other energy suppliers.

1. Details of this Privacy Policy

We require you to provide us with any information we reasonably request in relation to our service to you, this includes authorising any person who can provide this information about you, your household and property.

Under the Privacy Act 1993, this Privacy Policy does not limit or exclude your rights.

This Privacy Policy applies to all occurrences where we collect information about you and your property that we supply energy to.

2. Agreement to the collection of your personal information

When using the Black Box Power website, contacting Black Box Power or using any service from Black Box Power, you agree to the collection, use, disclosure, holding and processing of your personal information in agreement with this Privacy Policy and our terms and conditions. We may use any information we collect, use, disclose, hold and process about you for any or all of the following purposes:

To verify any information provided by you, or information that we have collected, with third parties including but not limited to, reporting agencies, government agencies such as the Ministry of Justice, Work and Income, New Zealand Police, network companies and other energy suppliers
To carry out credit checks, debt recovery or debt collection, which may involve disclosure to debt collection agencies, lawyers or a credit reporting agency. This information may be used to update and maintain credit information and files, reporting on your payment history, collecting outstanding money and may in turn be accessed by the credit reporting agencies customers.
To verify any information that you give to us (or information that we may collect from other sources) with third parties and third party databases for the purposes of fraud prevention or the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009.
To pass on your drivers or vehicle license information to credit reporting agencies and the Ministry of Justice as part of the checks we may conduct with them.
To confirm if you are a medically dependent or vulnerable customer which may involve us requesting information about you or someone in your household from your doctor, a District Health Board, Ministry of Social Development including but not limited to Work and Income or Family and Community Services.
To pass on to Lines companies for the purpose of supplying electricity and any other services to you.
To pass on to any person or organisation that we are required to disclose information by law or in compliance with the Code or other Industry Codes and Standards.

You authorise any third party to provide your information to us for any of these reasons.

You understand that if we are required to pass on your information to a credit reporting agency, that they may hold your information on file for reporting services and any other lawful purpose. They may also disclose your information for the purpose of credit checking, debt collection or any other lawful purpose.

3. Collection of your personal information

We will collect personal information submitted by you through the following activities;

Information submitted through the Black Box Power website
Information on your browsing activity when using the website
Any communication with us directly (writing, phone, email, promotions, surveys and recording of customer calls).
We may add and additional information we receive from third parties involved in your energy supply to your personal information.

4. Personal information we may collect

When becoming a Black Box Power customer, you are required to provide us with certain information. We may not be able to process your application if the required information is not provided.

We may collect the following information:

Name, email address, address you would like energy supplied to, postal address, phone number, date of birth and gender
Financial information (your credit or bank account details will not be stored by us)
Preference personal information
Details that you give to us when we communicate with you
Details of your device, browser, domain name and IP address, and the details of any website you linked from to the Website.
Information that we have obtained from third parties
Other relevant additional information that we require

5. Use of your personal information

The personal information that we collect from you may be used for any of our business purposes including but not limited to:

To confirm the set up of your account with us and the eligibility to use our services
Measuring your credit worthiness
Providing your energy service and any assistance required for this
To invoice you
To send you notices or contact you
To uphold our responsibilities from any contracts entered between you and us
To ensure customer satisfaction
To monitor online activities
Resolving Customer Care issues for example, complaints, requests or queries
In regard to the Utilities Disputes Ltd Commissioner Scheme in connection with any complaint made by you
To verify your identity when you contact us
To address mail to new occupants’ c/- your name on rural delivery routes, if necessary to ensure that mail is delivered to new occupants at your old address
To communicate promotional material to you from time to time
Conduct surveys and analyse, hold and share the results
To meet the requirements of the Electricity Authority Regulations and Rules
To meet the requirements of the Distributor, the operators of the Grid or Network or a trust or co-operative that owns that Distributor
To contact the Distributor and/or the trust or co-operative that owns that Distributor so that they may pass on rebates or discounts or prepare electoral rolls of trust beneficiaries
To comply with our legal requirements to you or other third parties involved in the supply of energy to you and your property
To comply with any legal requirements or in the connection with legal processes, fraud prevention, prosecution or detection
Debt recovery or debt collection

The information that we collect from you may be used for a number of purposes relating to our business, which include:

To confirm, assess, and ascertain your suitability to setup an account with us and utilise the services.
Assessing your credit worthiness.
Performing the services and any assistance required in connection with the services.
To satisfy our obligations arising from any contracts entered into between you and us.
To contact you to ensure customer satisfaction in respect of our role as your electricity provider.
To monitor, improve and administer the Website and App.
Responding and following up on any queries, complaints or requests you might have made, and other customer care issues.
Enable us to conduct surveys and analyse information pertaining to users of the Services, App and Website.
To enable us to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations to you and other third parties involved in the supply of electricity to you and your property.
To enable us to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations in connection with legal proceedings, crime or fraud prevention, detection or prosecution.
Debt collection.

If you begin the sign up process online and do not complete the application, we may be in contact with you to see if we can help you complete the process. We may store any information that is supplied by you in our database even if your application has been declined.

If you post messages or photos onto our website, social media, Google or through surveys, we may store and use this information.

6. Protecting your personal information

Reasonable steps will be taken to ensure the personal information you have provided us, or information that third parties have provided us with, is stored in a safe and secure environment which is protected from unauthorised access.

7. Retention of your personal information

We will store your personal information for as long as we are lawfully entitled to do so before and after you cancel your account with us. This includes contacting you if you decide to switch to another energy supplier, if you owe us any money and for general business practices.

8. Sharing your personal information

All personal information we collect about you or your property will be confidentially stored unless:

The disclosure relates to the purpose the information was collected for
We need to do so, in order to supply energy to you
If it is covered in our terms and conditions
If you have provided us with permission to not disclose your information
Any organisation authorised by the Privacy Act 1993
Third party services that we have a relationship with during their provisional services to us
Organisations that we are legally required to pass on your person information to comply with any legal requirements or in the connection with legal processes, fraud prevention, prosecution or detection
If we have a major corporate transaction, for example a sale of assets, we may disclose your personal information to third parties involved

We will always take reasonable steps to ensure your personal information remains confidential.

We may disclose your information to third parties such as debt recovery and credit checking agencies. They will use this information for the purposes of debt recovery and credit checking. They may store this information on their databases or provide it to a third party for checking repayment history or credit worthiness.

Under the Credit Reporting Privacy Code 2004 we are able to provide credit reporters with your “repayment history information”. This means that we will provide information relating to whether you meet or miss your monthly account payments to credit reporting agencies. This information will in turn, be listed on your credit report held by the credit reporting agency.

If a permitted class of persons carries out a credit check on you, the Credit Reporting Privacy Code 2004 enables them to access your “repayment history information” held by a credit reporting agency. This allows them to determine whether you will be likely, given your repayment history, to pay your accounts with them.

9. Credit card security

Pulse Energy Alliance LP does not store any of your credit or debit card payment details. Pay for your bill using a credit or debit card, your information is transmitted using Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protocol, which encrypts your information. Your credit or debit card details will be encrypted and securely stored by BAMBORA our trusted PCI compliant third party online payment provider.

10. Third party links

From time to time, we may include third party products or services on our website. These third parties have different privacy policies and we have no responsibility or liability for the content of these sites.

11. Website and tracking and measurement

We use third party website trackers, including but not limited to Google and Facebook, to gather data on our online users, make improvements and to assess our advertising.

12. Online Advertising

We advertise through social media, Google and other third parties online. These vendors may use cookies to track and target adverts based on your browser history and previous website visits.

We also use remarketing and create similar audiences through our online advertising including but not limited to Facebook and Google, which allow us to advertise to people who may not have entered their details on our website.

You can opt out in the following ways:

You have the option to opt out of Google’s use of cookies by visiting the visiting Google’s Ads Settings.
You can opt out of DoubleClick’s use of cookies by visiting the DoubleClick opt-out page.
Alternatively you can opt out of third-party vendors’ use of cookies by visiting the Network Advertising Initiative opt-out page.

14. Accessing your personal information

You can access some of your personal information that we store about you online in your “My Account” which you can access through the Black Box Power website. You may request access to all personal information we hold about you by contacting us on email or post:

customer.care@blackboxpower.co.nz

Black Box Power, PO Box 10044, Dominion Rd, Auckland, 1446

15. Amendment of your personal information

You must tell us promptly if any of your information changes, if it is incorrect or not up to date. Information about you will be held and used by us in accordance with the Privacy Act 1993. Under the Privacy Act, you or any other joint customer under this contract may access and request the correction of any of the information we hold under this contract by contacting us at the address provided above.

16. Updates to the Privacy Policy

We may change this Privacy Policy from time to time by uploading a new version onto the Black Box Power website.