Who we are
At Matt Searles Photography (www.mattsearlesphotography.nz), your privacy is important to us. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, and protect your personal information in accordance with the New Zealand Privacy Act 2020 and other relevant regulations.
1. Information We Collect
We may collect the following types of information when you visit our website or interact with our services:
• Personal Information: Such as your name, email address, phone number, and physical address when you submit inquiries, book a service, or make a purchase.
• Photography Data: Images captured as part of our photography services.
• Website Usage Information: Including your IP address, browser type, device information, and pages visited (via cookies and analytics tools).
2. How We Use Your Information
We use your information for the following purposes:
• To provide and deliver photography services and products.
• To communicate with you regarding bookings, inquiries, or orders.
• To improve our website and services.
• For invoicing, record-keeping, and other business-related purposes.
• To comply with legal obligations or resolve disputes.
3. Sharing Your Information
We respect your privacy and will not sell or share your personal information with third parties except in the following cases:
• Service Providers: Trusted third-party vendors (e.g., print labs, payment processors) to fulfill your orders.
• Legal Obligations: When required by law or to protect our legal rights.
4. Data Security
We implement reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect your personal information from unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, or destruction. While we strive to safeguard your data, no method of transmission or storage is completely secure. If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.
5. Cookies and Website Analytics
Our website uses cookies and similar technologies to enhance your browsing experience and collect data on website usage. You can adjust your browser settings to refuse cookies or alert you when they are being used.
For website analytics, we use tools like Google Analytics, which may collect data about your interactions with our site. This information is anonymized and used only to improve our services.
6. Comments
When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.
An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.
7. Embedded content from other websites
Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.
These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.
8. Who we share your data with
If you request a password reset, your IP address will be included in the reset email.
9. How long we retain your data
If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.
For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.
10. What rights you have over your data
If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.
11. Where your data is sent
Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.
12. Your Rights
Under the New Zealand Privacy Act 2020, you have the right to:
• Access the personal information we hold about you.
• Request corrections to any inaccuracies in your personal information.
• Withdraw consent for specific data processing activities (e.g., marketing communications).
To exercise these rights, please contact us using the details below.
13. Contact Us
If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or wish to make a request regarding your personal information, please contact us at:
Matt Searles Photography
Email: studio@mattsearlesphotography.nz
Website: www.mattsearlesphotography.nz
14. Updates to This Privacy Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices or legal requirements. The updated policy will be posted on this page with the effective date.