Privacy Policy

1. Introduction

The Giltrap Group Limited group of companies, including European Motor Distributors Limited, trading as Volkswagen New Zealand (collectively referred to as "Volkswagen NZ", “our”, “us” or "we") is committed to protecting the privacy of the personal information of our current, former and potential customers (referred to as “customers”, “you” and “your”).

This privacy policy sets out how we manage your personal information held by us, including how we collect, use, hold, disclose and otherwise process personal information.  You will also find information about how to contact us if you have any questions about privacy issues, including how to update or access your personal information or make a complaint. 

If we are unable to collect sufficient personal information, we may not be able to provide you with the full benefit of our products, services and offers or our online and digital platforms. 

By providing us with your personal information whether in person, over the phone, by email, via our online and digital channels or otherwise or by authorising (either directly or indirectly) third parties to provide us with your personal information you are deemed to have read this privacy policy and you are accepting and consenting to the practices described in this privacy policy.

Our authorised Volkswagen dealers (“Authorised Dealers”) are independent business entities and may have privacy policies which are different to ours. Authorised Dealers are responsible for their own privacy policies and privacy practices. Please contact your Authorised Dealer directly for enquiries or further information.

Any reference in this privacy policy to the “Act” is a reference to the Privacy Act 2020 including any amendments, re-enactments or replacements of that Act. 

2. What types of personal information do we collect?

We only collect and process personal information that we consider necessary for the effective functioning or activities of our business.  Generally, the types of personal information that we collect from or about you depends on the circumstances in which the information is collected.  We have described below examples of the types of personal information that may be collected, however this is not an exhaustive list:

• The main type of personal information that we collect is your name and contact details, including physical and postal address, email addresses, phone numbers, and mobile numbers.
• Our Authorised Dealers will collect your driver’s license details when you participate in a test drive or when you purchase a vehicle and we may be recipients of this information.
• Other personally identifiable information such as demographic information about your age, gender and occupation, as well as information about your hobbies, favourite sports and other interests and preferences may be collected if you choose to provide us with that information, for example when entering a competition or promotion or taking part in a customer experience survey following the purchase or service of your vehicle. 
• We may collect your airline membership number for the purpose of facilitating the award of airpoints in relation to your purchase (if applicable);
• We may collect financial and credit information if you are seeking to obtain finance for the purchase of a vehicle, and if you finance your vehicle with Volkswagen Finance, we may collect information about the finance, such as the amount financed and the type of finance product.
• We will collect information about your vehicle, including its number plate, vehicle identification number (VIN), and service plan schedule.
• We may collect information relating to your dealings with Volkswagen and/or our Authorised Dealers (such as details of vehicle/s purchased, service and repair history, and responses to other questions that we may ask).
• If you request or receive roadside assistance services, we may collect information about where (e.g. location) and when (e.g. date, time) you requested roadside assistance services and the assistance service that is required.
• We may collect other types of information you provide us when making enquiries or providing feedback on our or our Authorised Dealers’ products and services, for example enquiry details, your opinion on products and services, and records of your communications with us.
• We may collect information which you allow to be shared with us that is part of your public profile on a third-party social network, or information you create and share with us by posting it to one of our social networks.
• We may collect information relating to the way you use or navigate any of our websites, customer portals and mobile applications so that we can improve your experience and our communications with you online.  
• If you use any of our Volkswagen mobile applications, we may collect information (some of which may be personal information about you), including:

1. the number of trips and distances that you have driven;
2. the location of your vehicle, including historical locations and past driving history;
3. vehicle diagnostic information, such as tyre pressure, amount of fuel in the tank and engine information;
4. vehicle driving information, such as speed, braking and acceleration information; and vehicle fuel efficiency;
5. mobile phone information such as number, model, operating system and personal location data where you have activated location services on your mobile device; and
6. any mobile contact numbers entered in the applications for additional services relating to emergency contacts.

• We may also collect other personal information as otherwise permitted or required by law, as well as any other information that you choose to provide us. 

3. How is personal information collected?

We may collect personal information from or about you in a variety of ways. Where possible we will collect personal information directly from you.  The most common ways we collect personal information are:

• information you provide us directly either in person, over the phone, by email, or through our digital and online channels, for example:

1. if you make an enquiry about Volkswagen vehicles, parts, accessories or services, or if you request a test drive, brochure, specification sheet, information or other materials about Volkswagen vehicles, parts, accessories or services;
2. if you interact with us online, including via our websites or through social media channels;
3. If you use our customer portal and/or any of our Volkswagen mobile applications;
4. if you enter a promotion or competition carried out by Volkswagen directly or carried out by a third party with official affiliation with or support from Volkswagen;
5. if you participate in a marketing, product development, profiling, survey or market research campaign, including on social media channels; or
6. if you request roadside assistance services;

• we will collect personal information from our Authorised Dealers (e.g. information you provide when you purchase a new or used Volkswagen vehicle, part or accessory from an Authorised Dealer, arrange finance for the purchase of your Volkswagen vehicle, take a test drive at an Authorised Dealer, or have (or book in to have) your Volkswagen vehicle serviced or repaired at an Authorised Dealer);
• we may collect personal information from Volkswagen AG and its related entities, service providers, contractors, and agents (e.g. if you participate in a customer survey managed by Volkswagen AG.
• we may also collect personal information about vehicle owners from the Motor Vehicle Register, in accordance with our authorisation to access this register for specified purposes under section 241 of the Land Transport Act 1998
• we will collect your personal information from the third-party provider of Volkswagen Finance if you arrange finance for a Volkswagen vehicle through Volkswagen Finance; and
• in certain circumstances we may also collect your personal information from other third parties, including our related entities, service providers, contractors, and agents.

4. For what purposes do we collect, hold, use and disclose personal information?

We only collect, hold, use and disclose personal information for the purposes for which it was originally collected (and for related purposes which you would reasonably expect), unless required or authorised by or under law or if the individual concerned has consented to another use.  Some of the specific purposes for which we collect, hold, use and disclose personal information include:

• to enable us to correspond with you and do business together and for reasons related to our business operations, such as to ensure we and our Authorised Dealers continue to deliver quality products and services to our customers and potential customers;
• to assist in administering your vehicle purchase, lease, warranty, any extended service plan, roadside assistance, or ongoing vehicle service, and arranging for our Authorised Dealers to obtain required vehicles and parts on a timely basis to meet your needs;
• to facilitate your application for finance for the purchase of your vehicle;
• to respond to your enquiries, comments, concerns or requests for information about our vehicles, parts, accessories, services or offers;
• to process sales orders and administer accounts, warranty records and vehicle service records;
• to provide you and our Authorised Dealers with necessary support;
• to attend to or assist in the servicing or repair of your vehicle, including the provision of roadside assistance services and online vehicle service and repair booking facilities with or for Authorised Dealers;
• for product development, market research, and customer surveys (for example, to obtain your feedback and find out your level of satisfaction with our products and services and with our Authorised Dealers);
• for marketing and promotional activities, including to contact you directly or through our (or our affiliates’) service providers and research agencies for these purposes;
• to carry out our legal compliance obligations, such as to conduct a product safety recall where necessary or inform you of a customer notification or field service action affecting your vehicle;
• if you use any of our Volkswagen mobile applications to provide you with notifications and information about your vehicle;
• to send you service and Warrant of Fitness reminders;
• to contact you with details of new Volkswagen vehicles, products or services, or automotive products offered by other parties, or special offers or promotions that we think may be of interest to you;
• to assist our Authorised Dealers in performing any of the purposes outlined above (if applicable);
• we may use information collected from our websites to enable the features of the websites, to improve the websites by determining which of our products, features and services are most popular, and to personalise the experience of the users of our websites;
• we may also process your personal information for other purposes which are disclosed to you, and to which you consent, whether expressly or by implication by providing us with your personal information with knowledge of how we intend to use it; and
• we may also process your personal information without your consent for purposes that are required or authorised by or under any applicable law, including but not limited to meeting our legal obligations, assisting in the investigation of a breach of an agreement or a law, assisting in law enforcement purposes, and protecting our and our customers’ business interests.

5. Who has access to your personal information?

We respect the privacy of your personal information and will take all reasonable steps to keep it strictly confidential.  However, we may disclose your personal information to third parties if required in connection with the purposes described in this privacy policy. This may include disclosure to the following persons:

• our employees, officers, contractors, service providers, agents, and partners (for example, mailing houses, marketing agencies, airline programme partners, market research providers, printers, roadside assistance service providers, insurance providers, financiers, website and data hosting providers, data analytics providers, and other IT suppliers);
• our related or affiliated companies and their respective employees, officers, contractors, service providers and agents (and our related or affiliated companies may disclose the personal information directly to their contractors, service providers and agents);
• our Authorised Dealers (and vice versa);
• Volkswagen AG and its affiliated or related companies and its and their respective employees, officers, contractors, service providers, dealers, agents, partners, and licensees (and Volkswagen AG and its affiliated or related companies may disclose the personal information directly to their respective contractors, service providers, dealers, agents, partners, and licensees);
• our accountants, insurers, lawyers, auditors and other professional advisors;
• if your vehicle is provided by your employer as part of a corporate or government fleet policy, we may also disclose certain personal information to your employer;
• any other third parties to whom you direct or permit us to disclose your personal information (e.g. third parties with whom we have directly or indirectly arranged services for your benefit);
• third parties that require the information for law enforcement or to prevent a serious threat to public safety; and
• as otherwise permitted or required by or under any applicable law.
  

In the unlikely event that we sell a part of or the whole of our business, or we are no longer the authorised importer of Volkswagen vehicles, our records of personal information may be transferred to the new business owner, new importer, or to Volkswagen AG or any of its related or affiliated companies (as the case may be).  Any recipients of your personal information shall only be entitled to use your personal information as required for the purposes for which it was provided to them, which shall be consistent with the purposes described in this privacy policy. We will take reasonable steps to ensure that any third party to whom we disclose personal information is required to comply with the Act. Your provision of personal information to us (whether directly or indirectly) will constitute your consent for us to disclose this information in accordance with this privacy policy.

6. Disclosure of personal information offshore

Some of the third parties to whom we disclose personal information may be located outside New Zealand.  For example, as above, we may disclose personal information to Volkswagen AG and its affiliated or related companies and to service providers based offshore.   In addition, our websites and systems and those of our group companies may also be based on servers located outside of New Zealand.

If we disclose personal information to third parties based offshore, we will comply with the requirements of the Act that relate to the transfer of personal information offshore.

7. Cookies

Our websites use a technology called cookies to record the preferences of visitors and enable us to optimise the design of our websites.  A "cookie" is a small data element that a website transfers to your computer for record keeping and experience customisation purposes. The length of time that a user’s computer stores cookies is determined by the user’s browser settings.

The use of "cookies" is an industry standard and helps us monitor the effectiveness of our advertising and how visitors use our websites. During normal website usage our website "cookies" do not store your email address or other personal information about you unless you have given your consent, or if it is essential for technical reasons (i.e. secure login). We use this technology to generate statistics and measure website activity to improve the usefulness of customer visits. Each time you access our websites, our server may deliver certain customised information (such as advertisements) to you based on the data stored in your cookie. Third party vendors may utilise cookies to collect information about the content you view on our websites, customer portals or Volkswagen NZ mobile applications and use that information to show and/or serve our advertisements on other websites based on a user’s prior visits to our websites and other internet activity. We may also use analytics data supplied by third party vendors to inform and optimise our ad campaigns. We may utilise third party cookies in some parts of our websites.

Some of the tags that are used on our websites include, but are not limited to, container tags (such as Google tag manager), which include retargeting tags and analytics tags. These tags provide us with aggregated knowledge and information on website behaviour and user preferences.

By using our websites, customer portal and mobile applications you consent to the use and storage of cookies on your end device. You can also view our websites without cookies.  If you do not wish to receive any cookies you may set your browser to refuse cookies. Not all features of our websites, customer portal and mobile applications may be available if you do not enable cookies.  We recommend you enable cookies in order to enjoy our websites, customer portal and mobile applications. 

8. Storage and Security

Any personal information that falls within the scope of this privacy policy is collected and held by European Motor Distributors Limited (the contact details for this entity are provided below).

We will take reasonable steps to protect your personal information from misuse, interference, corruption, loss or unauthorised access, modification or disclosure, including through physical, electronic and procedural safeguards.  However, to the extent permitted by law, we will not be responsible for and exclude all liability arising in relation to any misuse, interference, corruption, loss or unauthorised access, modification or disclosure of your personal information.

If we provide you with any passwords or other security devices it is important that you keep these secret and confidential and do not allow them to be used by any other person. You should notify us immediately if the security of these devices is breached to prevent the unauthorised disclosure of your personal information.

If we become aware of any breach involving your personal information we will comply with the requirements of the Act relating to the reporting of privacy breaches.

9. How long do we retain your personal information?

We will keep your personal information for as long as it is required for the purposes for which it was collected, taking into consideration our need to answer queries or resolve problems, provide improved and new services, and comply with legal requirements.

When the personal information that we collect is no longer required or is not required to be retained by law, we destroy, delete or permanently anonymise it.

10. Email and other electronic communications

We are committed to full compliance with the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007.

By using our websites and other online and digital channels and/or by providing us with your personal information you consent to receiving communications from us or from third parties on our behalf using the contact details you have provided (including, without limitation, via direct mailing, email, SMS, telephone call, and other phone number based messaging) which promote and market our products and services, or the products and services of others, from time to time.

You can opt out of those communications at any stage by contacting us using the contact details set out below at paragraph 11 or by utilising the "unsubscribe" facility included on all such communications. Once you have unsubscribed from these communications, we will remove you from the corresponding marketing list as soon as is reasonably practicable.

If you wish to unsubscribe from marketing material you receive from an Authorised Dealer, please contact that dealer directly.

11. Your rights to access and correct personal information

You may obtain confirmation from us as to whether or not we hold personal information about you. You may also request a copy of the personal information and/or request that corrections or changes are made to it. You can make such requests in relation to your personal information by contacting our Privacy Officer using the details set out below.  Please quote your name and address and, if possible, provide brief details of what information you want a copy of (this helps us to more readily locate your information).

We will provide you with access to your personal information unless we are required or authorised to refuse such access by law. 

In some cases, there may be a charge associated with retrieving and providing a copy of your personal information to you. If so, we will advise you of this prior to sending your information.

All such enquiries should be directed to:

Privacy Officer

Volkswagen New Zealand
European Motor Distributors Limited
PO Box 959 Auckland
Email: privacy@volkswagen.co.nz
Phone: +64-9-360-2911
Fax: +64-9-355-7774

12. Complaints

At all times we will strive to ensure that your personal information is treated confidentially and in accordance with the Act. However, if you have any questions or complaints about the handling of your personal information, please contact our Privacy Officer in the first instance using the contact details set out in paragraph 11 above and we will do our best to assist.  

If you are still not satisfied, you can make a complaint to the Privacy Commissioner.  Further details on how to do this are available on the Privacy Commissioner website at www.privacy.org.nz 

13. Links to other websites

Our websites may contain links to other sites that are owned or operated by third parties and which are therefore not under our control, including the websites of Authorised Dealers or our third-party service providers.  We take no responsibility for linked websites and provide them solely for your information and convenience.  We specifically disclaim responsibility for their content, privacy practices and terms of use, and we make no endorsements, representations or warranties about their accuracy, content or thoroughness. Your disclosure of personal information to or in connection with third party websites is at your own risk.

14. Changes to this privacy policy

We reserve the right to amend this privacy policy from time to time by posting an updated privacy policy here on this website.  We will collect, use, hold and disclose your personal information in accordance with our most recently updated version of the privacy policy.   We recommend that you regularly review this privacy policy when you visit this website.

If you do not agree with any aspect of the updated privacy policy, you must promptly notify us.  If we are unable to collect, use, hold, disclose and/or otherwise process your personal information in accordance with this privacy policy you may be unable to use, access or obtain the full benefit of some or all of our products, services, offers, or online and digital platforms. 

This privacy policy was last updated in April 2021.

15. Privacy Act

Nothing in this privacy policy affects your rights under the Act.  Further information about the Act and how it protects the personal information of individuals in New Zealand is available from the Privacy Commissioner website at www.privacy.org.nz 

Whilst we will endeavour to ensure that the content on the website (including (without limitation) all information on it, whether provided by us or not) ("Content") is error-free, we do not warrant its accuracy, adequacy or completeness or that it is suitable for your intended use. The Content may contain inaccuracies and typographical errors. The content may be updated at any time and may, at times, be out of date, inaccurate and/or incomplete. We do not have any responsibility for keeping the content up to date, accurate and/or complete, nor do we have any liability for any failure to do so.

This website and content is provided on an "as is" basis and there are no representations or warranties of any kind about the website. This website may not be continuously available and we make no assurances it is free from computer viruses or any other malicious or impairing computer program.

You agree that all conditions, warranties and representations in respect of this website and the Content (express or implied) of any kind, including (without limitation) accuracy, quality, suitability, fitness for purpose, or completeness of any Content, are excluded to the fullest extent permitted by law.