Privacy Policy

Our privacy statement tells you how we use the information collected on the website.

We are committed to:

• Making sure your information is kept private
• Holding all personal information in a way that complies with the Privacy Act 2020 and any other applicable privacy legislation.

For more information about your rights on our website and SPARX, please read our terms and conditions.

For more information about your rights and responsibilities when using SPARX, please read our Terms.

This Privacy Policy applies to all personal information you enter through SPARX, and any information that the software may automatically fetch during your visit to the website. When you register as a user and/or use SPARX you agree that we can use any personal information we collect according to the terms of this Privacy Policy.

We may change this Privacy Policy from time to time, by updating it on the website. You should check the Privacy Policy for updates each time you use SPARX.

In this Privacy Policy:

• ‘Personal information’ has the meaning in the Privacy Act 2020 but generally refers to information about an identifiable individual
• ‘SPARX’ means the website and the self-help tool provided at that site
• ‘Terms’ means the SPARX Terms and Conditions
• ‘we’, ‘our’, and ‘us’ mean Auckland UniServices Ltd
• ‘website’ and ‘site’ mean www.sparx.org.nz and any successor website.

SPARX automatically uses the information you provide within the game to direct the way in which the game progresses and responds to your choices.

We also use your information:

• to administer your account (for example, we use your email address to send you a new password)
• from the questions on the website to help determine if SPARX is right for you
• to enforce or apply our terms of use
• to protect our rights, property or safety and the integrity of the website
• to communicate with you about SPARX and our other services from time to time.

We also combine your information with information from other users (in a form that hides your identity) to:

• monitor if SPARX is effective
• generate an overall view of who uses the website
• analyse trends and types of users to help us improve SPARX
• carry out our internal business operations, including meeting our legal requirements, quality assurance and management
• collect statistics and data on website usage, including using Google Analytics, to enable us to develop, market, or improve SPARX and related offerings.

Only authorised members of the SPARX team have access to personal information and only for the purposes above.

The email address and/or mobile number you provide will be encrypted. This means it is stored and used under the cover of a 'secret code' so that your identity is protected.

SPARX is funded by the Prime Ministers Youth Mental Health Project. To help determine if SPARX is reaching its intended users and achieving its intended purpose, we report summaries of this information to the Ministry. We do not include any identifying information about individual users in these reports.

We may also combine your information with information from other users to carry out research into the effectiveness of SPARX and similar research.

We may use identifying information about individuals for research, but only where you have given us permission to do so.

We may publish the results of our research, but we do not include any identifying information about individuals in those publications.

You can ask us to stop collecting your information going forward and we will deactivate your account.

Most of the information we collect is necessary to support your use of SPARX. If you do not provide the information requested, you may be unable to use SPARX.

SPARX is for New Zealand users only. You will not be able to register as a user if your IP address is from outside New Zealand.

Some of the information we ask for (ethnicity, gender) is optional. This information is helpful in reporting to the Ministry on general use and reach of SPARX. However, if you choose not to provide this information, you will still be able to use SPARX.

We will not release personal information about you to any third party except:

• where the law requires or permits us to do so
• where you have authorised us to do so
• where you request help - we will forward your query to our support service provider partner, Lowdown/Depression.org.nz (Whakarongorau Aotearoa New Zealand Telehealth Services) so they can provide you with advice and/or counselling support
• where you access one of the third-party links or tools available through SPARX (such as the help chatbot which is provided by Whakarongorau Aotearoa New Zealand Telehealth Services) – in that case you will share your information directly with the owner of the third-party link or tool.

We will not sell or rent out your personal information to third parties under any circumstances.

This website contains non-advertising links to a variety of third-party sites. We provide these links to make your experience of the site better. We have no control of either the content or privacy policies of such sites. You should not consider that we approve of all the content on such sites or of the organisations that provide them unless we specifically say so.

We take reasonable steps to keep your information safe and secure. Your information is stored on our servers within the University of Auckland protected environment.