Privacy Policy

Metlifecare Limited Privacy Policy

Introduction

Metlifecare is committed to safeguarding personal information and complying with the privacy principles set out in the Privacy Act 2020 (Act), together with the requirements of the Health Information Privacy Code 2020 (Code). This privacy policy explains how Metlifecare collects, uses, disclosures and stores personal information, including health information about our Residents as well as other people we interact with such as our Resident’s families and representatives, prospective residents, visitors to our villages and website, and individuals we do business with.

You are not required to provide us with any personal or health information. However, if you do not provide us with certain information that we request, you may not be able to access or use some parts or all of our website, or our products or services.

In this privacy policy:

“health information” has the meaning given to that term in the Code. This includes information about your health (including your medical history and clinical notes), information about any disabilities you have (or have had), information about any health services or disability services that are being (or have been) provided to you (including medication and prescription details), or information about you which is collected before or in the course of (or incidental to) the provision of any health service or disability services to you;
“Metlifecare”, “we”, “us” and “our” means Metlifecare Limited and, if applicable, our successors and assignees;
“Metlifecare group” means any company within the group of companies of which Metlifecare Limited forms part, at any time;
“personal information” means any information about an identifiable individual, including health information;
“Residents” means individuals who are resident at any of our retirement villages or care homes;
“Website” means https://www.metlifecare.co.nz (https://www.metlifecare.co.nz) and any other website or application (including any applications for mobile devices) that are owned or operated by us or any company in the Metlifecare group; and
“you” and “your” means the individual that this privacy policy applies to, including Residents and your authorised representatives (including pursuant to a power of attorney), as well as individuals who are not Residents but have expressed interest in, or applied for, our products or services.

Changes to this privacy policy

We may amend this privacy policy from time to time to reflect changes to how we manage your personal information or the law by posting a revised version of this privacy policy on our website. The revised version of this privacy policy will take effect immediately upon publication (or, if applicable, on the date specified in the revised privacy policy). If the changes are material, we may also take additional steps to bring the changes to your attention, as required by law, including by notifying you directly.

What personal and health information we collect and how we collect it

Depending on our relationship with you and/or the type of services we are providing to you we will collect different types of personal and/or health information.

If you are a Resident (or have applied to become a Resident) we need to collect personal and health information from and about you.

The types of information we collect about you may include:

Personal information such as your, name, date of birth, contact details (including address, telephone number and email address), gender, ethnicity and spoken languages;
Health information (including information about your medical history, medication and prescription details, clinical notes and health services that have been or are being provided);
Financial information, such as your bank account details and other payment information;
Information about any of your authorised representatives, including copies of enduring powers of attorney, together with relevant contact details of the appointed attorneys;
Details of any communications between us and you, and
CCTV footage captured on our sites;
any other personal information that we request or you provide to us or authorise us to collect.

We collect most of this information directly from you, but may also collect information from third parties which have your authorisation to share this with us or where we have a lawful right to collect it. These third parties may include your family members, your medical providers (such as your GP or a hospital), the Needs Assessment and Service Coordination Service, or other referring agencies.

We also collect personal information about people who visit our villages, such as friends and family, as well as service providers.

If we interact with you because we are doing business with you (e.g. you are employed by one of our suppliers) we may collect some personal information about you such as your name and work contact details.

We may also collect personal information about you when you communicate with us, including via social media, email or our website, or when you sign up to receive our newsletter or other information.

CCTV monitoring

We may use CCTV and IP cameras to record footage at our facilities. We may use CCTV footage for the purposes of investigating, deterring and detecting criminal behaviour and other incidents at our villages and care homes, and for the wellbeing, safety and security of our Residents, staff, property and visitors.

We will ensure that the monitoring of CCTV does not unreasonably intrude on situations where there is an expectation of privacy. Signage advising that cameras are in operation will be installed in accordance with the Privacy Act. Only approved persons will be permitted to access CCTV images and CCTV footage.

Collection of information about other people

If you provide us with or authorise us to collect personal information about another person, you confirm you have obtained their consent to provide us with, or that they have authorised us to collect, their personal information and that you have informed them of their rights to access and request correction of their personal information, as set out below.

How we use your personal information

We may use your personal information for the following purposes:

for the general operation of Metlifecare, our retirement village and aged care business and our relationship with you – including to contact you about and enable you to apply for, and use, our services and products, to provide you with, and monitor, the products or services that you have requested and to communicate with you and your authorised representatives;
considering any application from you or on your behalf for any of our services and products, including to establish and verify your identity and, if applicable, to assess your creditworthiness and financial position from time to time;
exercising our rights and fulfilling our obligations under any agreement with you and under applicable laws;
for marketing purposes by providing you with information about our other products and services, or the products and services provided by the Metlifecare Group and selected third parties, that we think you may be interested in, including by post, telephone, text, email and other electronic messages – you can opt out of receiving information about our other products and services and/or the products and services of selected third parties by telling us in writing;
to improve the services and products that we provide to you;
to bill you and to collect money that you owe us, including authorising and processing credit card transactions;
to respond to communications from you or on your behalf, including in relation to requests, enquiries, or complaints, or to otherwise contact you about our products or services;
to conduct research and statistical analysis;
to protect and/or enforce our legal rights and interests, including defending any claim;
to ensure the safety, security and wellbeing of Residents and our staff;
for any other purpose authorised by you or by the Act or Code; and
to carry out any activity in connection with a legal, governmental or regulatory requirement or in connection with legal proceedings or inquiry, or the investigation, prevention, detection or prosecution of crime.

We will not use personal information for any other purpose, unless we have your consent to do so, or we are permitted or required to do so by law.

If you do not consent to us using your personal information to market and promote our services and products and/or the products and services of selected third parties, you can opt out at any time by notifying us at legalteam@metlifecare.co.nz or by clicking the unsubscribe function included in our electronic marketing communications.

Collection of images and photographs

We may at times record the image of Residents, unless Residents opt out by notifying us at legalteam@metlifecare.co.nz. These images may be used for publicity and advertising purposes, including (but not limited to) on our social media platforms, in our annual reports and in our marketing material. If you are a Resident who has not opted-out, you consent to the use of your image, and give us the right and unrestricted permission to use, display, distribute, transmit, publish and copy your image through any media or medium for publicity and advertising purposes at any time. You irrevocably waive any and all moral and performers’ rights in relation to the images to the fullest extent permissible at law and confirm that you are not entitled to compensation or other remuneration, now or in the future, in return for any use of the images.

Disclosing your personal information

We may disclose your personal information to:

another company within the Metlifecare group, which may use your information for the purposes set out above;
our service providers or any business that supports our services and products, including any person that hosts or maintains any underlying IT system or data centre that we use to provide the website or other services and products;
a credit reporting agency for the purpose of credit checking you – credit reporting agencies may retain information (including default information) and use it to provide their credit reporting services;
debt collection agencies or companies in order to collect any money owing from you;
our insurers and professional advisors;
your authorised representatives (including pursuant to a power of attorney);
other third parties, in an aggregated and anonymised form for analytical or statistical purposes;
an organisation who, we are permitted or required to supply your personal information (e.g. a government, health or regulatory authority);
any other person authorised by you or to whom we are permitted or authorised to disclosure personal information in accordance with the Act, Code or any other law (e.g. in an emergency health situation ).

Protecting your personal information

Storage

Personal Information that we collect is either held by us at our villages, offices and facilities or is stored by third-party service providers on our behalf. Some information we hold will be stored on our behalf by third parties based overseas. The use of these services, and the transfer of information overseas (if applicable) will not relieve us of our obligations under the Act and this privacy policy.

Security

We will take reasonable steps to ensure the personal information we hold is accurate, complete, up to date, stored in a secure environment and is safe from loss, unauthorised access, use, modification or disclosure, or other misuse, in accordance with our obligations under the Act and the Code.

We will only retain your personal information for as long as it is required to achieve the purposes set out in this privacy policy, for our record keeping purposes or as otherwise required by law.

Updates

We rely on you to update us if your contact details change (please refer to the Contact Us section below).

Accessing and correcting your personal information

Subject to certain grounds for refusal set out in the Act or Code, you have the right to access personal information that we hold about you, and to request that we correct your personal information. Before you exercise this right, we will need evidence to confirm you are the individual to whom the personal information relates (or that you are authorised to access the personal information on their behalf).

If you want to exercise either of the above rights, email us at legalteam@metlifecare.co.nz. Your email should provide evidence of who you are and set out the details of your request (e.g. the personal information, or the correction, that you are requesting).

Use of our website and social media platforms cookies and other tracking technologies

If you post any personal information on our website’s message board, chat room or social media platforms, you acknowledge and agree that the information you post is publicly available and may be read or used by other users of our website or social media channels.

Our website may have links to third party sites. Our privacy policy does not apply to those sites and we accept no responsibility or liability for the content or privacy practices of those sites. The owner of the third-party site will have its own privacy policy relating to your personal information which we suggest you review before you provide any personal information.

Use of cookies and other tracking technologies

We use cookies and similar technologies (small packets of data that we transfer to your web browser or device) to recognise you and monitor your use of our website for the purposes of providing more customised content to you on our website and conducting business and marketing analysis.

We may also allow our third-party partners such as Google and Meta (Facebook) to provide audience measurement and analytics services for use to serve advertisements and to track, analyse and report on the performance of those advertisements. These entities may use a range of third-party cookies and similar technologies to identify the devices used by visitors to our websites, as well as when they visit other online sites and services. This information is used to analyse your use of our website and may be used to display ads to you in relation to our products or services when you visit our website and third-party websites. These entities use such cookies and similar technologies in accordance with their privacy policies. You can view the Google and Meta privacy policies at the following weblinks:

Google: https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en

Meta: https://www.facebook.com/privacy/policy/

If you do not wish to allow cookies, you may disable cookies by changing the settings on your browser, although this may mean that you cannot use all of the features of the website.

How to contact us

If you have any queries or concerns about our privacy policy, or our handling of your personal information, please contact us at Metlifecare Limited, Level 4, 110 Carlton Gore Road, Newmarket, Auckland, 1023, New Zealand, attention Metlifecare Privacy Officer, or call us on 09 539 8000, or email us at legalteam@metlifecare.co.nz.

This privacy policy was last updated on 4 March 2025.