Privacy Policy

This version of our privacy policy has been updated to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation ((EU) 2016/679) (“GDPR”).

At Landlord Studio we recognise the importance of your privacy. This policy outlines the information we collect, why we collect it, how we use and disclose it, how we safeguard your information, when your information will be deleted, and your privacy rights.

Landlord Studio may be required to revise this Privacy Policy in the future to comply with any applicable regulations, in order to utilise new technologies or to improve your Landlord Studio experience, so please check back periodically.

This Privacy Policy forms part of, and should be read in conjunction with, our Terms and Conditions.

Important information about who we are

Landlord Studio Limited (New Zealand company number: 7072875) is the controller and is responsible for your personal information (referred to as“Landlord Studio”, “we”, “us” or “our” in this policy).

If you have any questions about this privacy policy, please contact them using the details set out below.

Contact details

Our full details are:
Landlord Studio Limited
Email address: help@landlordstudio.com
Postal address: 2/509 New North Road, Auckland, New Zealand

What information do we collect from you?

Information you choose to give us.

When a user (typically a property owner or property manager) signs up to our services, or logs into our services via Facebook or your Google account or using Apple Sign In, we collect your:

·               “Contact Information” including your email address

After you sign up, you may choose to add more information about yourself and your organisation:

·               “Identity Information” including your first and last name

·               “Contact Information” including your billing and physical address

·               “Property Information” about the properties a user owns or manages, including photographs, property expenses, mortgage information and valuation

·               “Lease Information” including rent payments

·               “Marketing and Communications Information” including your preferences in receiving marketing from us and our third parties and your communication preferences

If you contact us (whether you are a user or not), we may collect:

·               “Identity Information” including your first and last name

·               “Contact Information” including your email address

·               “Profile Information” including a record of our correspondence with you, your interests, preferences, feedback and survey responses.

When a user contacts us for support, our customer representative may attach our support account to view your data if we need to get more information. You can tell us you don’t want us to do this in your support email.

What information do we collect from other sources?

Categories of personal information that other people give us.

Our users may instruct us to collect, or provide us with, personal information about someone else, such as a:

·               “Tenant” of a property owned or managed by our user;

·               “Property Owner”, if our user is a property manager; and

·               “Contractor”, in respect of a property owned or managed by our user.

This may include:

·               “Identity Information” including first and last name

·               “Contact Information” including email and physical address

·               “Financial Information” including a Tenant’s credit score

·               “Property Information” about the properties a Property Owner owns or Tenant resides in, including photographs, property expenses, mortgage information and valuation

·               “Lease Information” in respect of a property a Property Owner owns or Tenant resides in, including rent payments

·               “Marketing and Communications Information” including preferences in receiving marketing from us and our third parties and communication preferences.

We may collect personal information stored with a third party application that you choose to utilise through an integration that we have developed with the third party application.  By linking your third party accounts, you authorise us to have access to this information and you agree that we may collect and use this information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

When we process personal information on the instructions of a user we do so as a “data processor” for the purposes of the GDPR.  Our user is the “controller” of the information, and makes the decision around how that personal information is used.

If you provide Landlord Studio with personal information about someone else, or instruct us to collect personal information about someone else, you must ensure that you are authorised to disclose that information to Landlord Studio in accordance with all applicable laws. This includes:

·               providing the other person with notice that their personal information may be processed by Landlord Studio in accordance with this policy; and

·               if the personal information is subject to the GDPR, that you agree to the terms and conditions in our Data Processing Agreement attached as Schedule 1 of our Terms and Conditions.

Information we observe.

Similar to other services, we also automatically collect information through cookies (or similar technologies) and other applications within our services. Please see our cookie policy for further details.

As you interact with our services, we will automatically collect:

·               “Technical Information” including your IP address, the device you use, the date and time, your interactions with our services, and the location of your device you use to access our services

·               “Transaction Information” including details about payments to and from you and other details of products and services you have purchased from us.

·               “Profile Information” including purchases or orders made by you to a Contractor, your interests, preferences, feedback and survey responses.

·               “Usage Information” including information about how you use our services, and the emails you send via our services to Tenants, Property Owners, Contractors, or any other third party.

When you make a payment to us through our services (including via Paypal and Stripe) we may record Identify, Contact, and Transaction Information.

Analytical information.

We may combine and analyse the information that we have collected (including via Google Analytics).  This information could be derived from your personal information but is not considered personal information in law as the information is collated in such a way so that it no longer reflects or represents any individual user.  For example, we may aggregate Usage Information to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific service feature.

However, it is possible that data analytics will create new personal information. For example, insights from data analytics may be combined or connected with your personal information, for example to understand a user’s preferences and behaviour.  We treat the combined data as personal information which will be used in accordance with this policy.

We limit our collection of information via data analytics to ensure that we are only creating personal information that is reasonably necessary for the purposes described below.  If personal information is created via data analytics which is not necessary for these purposes, then such information will be either de-identified or destroyed.

Do we collect special categories of information?

We do not collect any special categories of information (this includes details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health, and genetic and biometric data). Nor do we collect any information about criminal convictions and offences.

Why do we collect and what do we do with this information?

We will only use your personal information when the law allows us to.  Most commonly, we will use your personal information in the following circumstances:

·               where we need to perform the contract we are about to enter into or have entered into with you;

·               where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests; and

·               otherwise where we need to comply with a legal obligation that we are subject to.

Generally, we do not rely on consent as a legal basis for processing your personal information although we will get your consent before:

·               sending third party direct marketing communications to you; and

·               providing your personal information to our “Partners”or an“Integrating Partner”, as specified in the information sharing section of this policy below.

Purposes for which we will use your personal information.  

We have set out below, in a table format, a description of all the ways we plan to use your personal information, and which of the legal bases we rely on to do so.  We have also identified what our legitimate interests are where appropriate.

Purpose/Activity

Type of personal information

Lawful basis for processing including basis of legitimate interest

To register you as a new customer

(a) Identity

(b) Contact

Performance of a contract with you

To process and deliver your order for our services including:

(a) Manage payments, fees and charges

(b) Collect and recover money owed to us

(a) Identity

(b) Contact

(c) Financial

(d) Transaction

(e) Marketing and Communications

(a) Performance of a contract with you

(b) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to recover debts due to us)

To manage our relationship with you which will include:

(a) Notifying you about changes to our terms or privacy policy

(b) Asking you to leave a review or take a survey

(a) Identity

(b) Contact

(c) Profile

(d) Marketing and Communications

(a) Performance of a contract with you

(b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation

(c) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to keep our records updated and to study how customers use our products/services)

To administer and protect our business and services (including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, system maintenance, support, reporting and hosting of data)

(a) Identity

(b) Contact

(c) Technical

(a) Necessary for our legitimate interests (for running our business, provision of administration and IT services, network security, to prevent fraud and in the context of a business reorganisation or group restructuring exercise)

(b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation

To deliver relevant service content and advertisements to you and measure or understand the effectiveness of the advertising we serve to you

(a) Identity

(b) Contact

(c) Profile

(d) Usage

(e) Marketing and Communications

(f) Technical

Necessary for our legitimate interests (to study how customers use our products/services, to develop them, to grow our business and to inform our marketing strategy)

To use data analytics to improve our services, marketing, customer relationships and experiences

(a) Technical

(b) Usage

Necessary for our legitimate interests (to define types of customers for our products and services, to keep our website updated and relevant, to develop our business and to inform our marketing strategy)

To make suggestions and recommendations to you about goods or services that may be of interest to you

(a) Identity

(b) Contact

(c) Technical

(d) Usage

(e) Profile

(f) Marketing and Communications

Necessary for our legitimate interests (to develop our products/services and grow our business)

Note that we may process your personal information for more than one lawful ground depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your information. Please contact us if you need details about the specific legal ground we are relying on to process your personal information where more than one ground has been set out in the table below.

Change of purpose.

We will only use your personal information for the purposes for which we collected it.

We may also use the information collected for such other purposes that are compatible with the original purpose described above, or that you otherwise consented to from time to time.

Marketing

We strive to provide you with choices regarding certain personal information uses, particularly around marketing and advertising.  You can ask us to stop sending you marketing messages at any time by following the opt-out links on any marketing message sent to you.

Who might we share your information with?

De-identified information

Landlord Studio may use and disclose de-identified information.  This information could be derived from your personal information but is not considered personal information in law as the information is:

·               collated in such a way so that it no longer reflects or represents any individual user; and

·               there is only a low risk that any person could be re-identified from the data.

For example, we may disclose information about the average rent or average rental yield in a particular area.

De-identified information shared with Partners.

De-identified information may be made available to our Partners (see our Terms of Service).  In general, the purpose of this information sharing is to enable our Partners to analyse whether a user may be interested in a product or service that they offer.

The de-identified information that we share with Partners will be limited to only that non-personal information which is reasonably necessary for the Partner to pursue their legitimate functions and activities. We will consider any risks that the Partner will be able to re-identify any person from the information that we share with them (including via the Partner’s legitimate access to other data sets), and the most appropriate data access environment to facilitate the sharing.

Only if you explicitly confirm you wish to be contacted by us or one of our Partners in relation to that offer, will we share your personal information.  Information shared with a Partner will be treated by that Partner in accordance with its privacy policy.  Please review a Partner’s privacy policy before consenting to us sharing your personal information with them.  If you are an EU-based person, then you have the right under the GDPR to withdraw consent at any time by contacting us.

Integrations

You may choose to utilise third party applications, including:

·               Plaid Technologies, Inc. (“Plaid”)- https://plaid.com/

·               Dwolla, Inc. (“Dwolla”) – https://www.dwolla.com/

through an integration that Landlord Studio has developed with the third party (being an“Integrating Partner”). Landlord Studio may share your information with an Integrating Partner on your request.  Information shared with an Integrating Partner is treated by that third party in accordance with its Privacy policy (typically available on their website).  Please review the relevant Integrating Partner’s privacy policy before consenting to us sharing your personal information with them.  If you are an EU-based person, then you have the right under the GDPR to withdraw consent at any time by contacting us.

Information shared with Plaid is treated by Plaid in accordance with its Privacy policy, available at https://plaid.com/legal/#end-user-privacy-policy

In the UK, Landlord Studio provides you with regulated account information services as an agent of Plaid Financial Ltd., an authorised payment institution regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority under the Payment Services Regulations 2017 (Firm Registration Number: 804718) for the provision of payment services, including account information services."  

Third-parties

We may also provide information to:

·               our professional advisors including lawyers, accountants, bankers, auditors and insurers;

·               other companies or entities within the Landlord Studios group, and who are based in New Zealand, United Kingdom and United States;

·               and our third party service providers, acting as “data processors” for the purposes of the GDPR, including providers of our data centres, (located in the US);

·               regulators or other person under applicable laws; and

·               third parties to whom we may choose to sell, transfer or merge parts of our business or our assets. Alternatively, we may seek to acquire other businesses or merge with them.  If a change happens to our business, then the new owners may use your personal information in the same way as set out in this privacy policy.

We limit the disclosure of information to only that information which is reasonably necessary in connection with the reason for engaging a third parties, and will ensure that such third parties:

·               have such security measures in place that, as a minimum, is equal to the protections outlined in this privacy policy;

·               treat your personal information in accordance with the law;

·               are not allowed to use your personal information for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal information for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

International information transfers

We share your personal information within other companies within the Landlord Studios group. This will involves transferring your data outside the European Economic Area (EEA).

Many of our external third parties are based outside the EEA so their processing of your personal information will involve a transfer of information outside the EEA.

Whenever we transfer your personal information out of the EEA, we ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by ensuring at least one of the following safeguards is implemented:

·               We will only transfer your personal information to countries that have been deemed to provide an adequate level of protection for personal information by the European Commission, including New Zealand.

·               Where we use third-party service providers based in the US, we may transfer data to them if they are part of the “Privacy Shield” which requires them to provide similar protection to personal information shared between Europe and the US.

·               Where we use third-party service providers, we may use specific contracts approved by the European Commission which give personal information the same protection it has in Europe.

Please contact us if you want further information on the specific mechanism used by us when transferring your personal information out of the EEA.

Links and affiliated websites

Landlord Studio contains hypertext links to other sites, advertisers and other third parties. By clicking on any of these links, you are leaving our services. Landlord Studio has no control over the information collected by any third party after you have left our services, and Landlord Studio encourage you to read their privacy policies.

The data collection and usage practices of any third party linked to Landlord Studio are not covered by this Privacy Policy. Landlord Studio assumes no liability and is not responsible for any practices of such third party web sites, including their privacy practices or content.

How long do we keep hold of your information?

Policy

We will only retain your personal information for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for.  To determine the appropriate retention period, we consider:

·               the amount, nature and sensitivity of the personal information;

·               the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal information;

·               the purposes for which we process your personal information and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means; and

·               the applicable legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or other requirements.

Deletion

We keep personal information attached to a user’s account for the term of the user’s subscription with us.  On the date that is 12 months after the end of the subscription period , we will either delete the personal information attached to a user’s account or anonymise the information (so that the data is no longer considered personal information in law).

At any time you can request us to delete all data you have entered and all data we hold about you by emailing help@landlordstudio.com. We will action this request, by either deleting or de-identifying the data, within 7 days’ time from our main database.  It will also be removed or de-identified from our backup databases within 30 days.

Retention

We may retain your personal data for a longer period:

·               for the purposes of satisfying any legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or reporting requirements; or

·               in the event of a complaint or if we reasonably believe there is a prospect of litigation in respect to our relationship with you.

How do we safeguard your information?

Landlord Studio is committed to protecting the security of your personal information and we take all reasonable precautions to protect it from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.

Security measures

Measures that may be taken include the following:

·               Your personal information is stored on secure servers that have SSL Certificates.

·               All information transferred between a user and our service is encrypted.

·               We limit access to your personal information to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know.

·               Our employees, agents, contractors and other third parties will only process your personal information on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

·               We have the ability to ensure the ongoing confidentiality, integrity, availability and resilience of processing systems and services.

·               We have the ability to restore the availability and access to personal information in a timely manner in the event of a physical or technical incident.

·               We have a process for regularly testing, assessing and evaluating the effectiveness of technical and organisational measures for ensuring the security of the processing.

Data security incidents

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal information breach and we will advise you and any applicable regulator upon discovering or being advised of a security breach where we are legally required to do so.

What are my privacy rights?

New Zealand and Australia

Pursuant to your rights under the Privacy Act 1993 (New Zealand) and the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Australia) you have the right to:

·               check whether we hold information about you and to access such personal information;

·               request us to correct as soon as reasonably practicable any information about you that is inaccurate;

·               ascertain our policies and practices in relation to personal information and the kind of personal information held by us (as set out in this Privacy Policy);

·               object to the use of your personal information for direct marketing purposes and we shall not use your personal information for direct marketing purposes after you communicate your objection to us.

European Union

Pursuant to your rights under the GDPR, if you are an EU-based person you have the right to:

·               Request access to your personal information. This enables you to receive a copy of the personal information we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.

·               Request correction of your personal information.  This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate information we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new information you provide to us.

·               Request deletion of your personal information.  This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal information where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it.  You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal information where:

o   you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below);

o   we may have processed your information unlawfully; or

o   where we are required to erase your personal information to comply with local law.

Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.

·               Object to processing of your personal information where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms.  You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal information for direct marketing purposes.  In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms.

·               Request restriction of processing your personal information.  This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal information in the following scenarios:

o   If you want us to establish the information’s accuracy.

o   Where our use of the information is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it.

o   Where you need us to hold the information even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims.

o   You have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.

·               Request transfer of your personal information.  We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal information in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format.  Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.

·               Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal information.  However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent.  If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.

·               Right to complain at any time. Where you have any cause for complaint about our use of your personal data, please contact us at help@landlordstudio.com and we will do our best best to resolve the problem. Where you are unsatisfied or we are unable to help, you have the right to complain to the UK's supervisory authority, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).

Contact the ICO online or call their helpline on 0303 123 1113 (local rate) or 01625 545 745 (national rate).

How can I exercise my privacy rights?

If you wish to exercise your rights, please email us at help@landlordstudio.com.

We may require you to provide verification of your identity.

Any such requests will be replied to within 30 days.  Occasionally it could take us longer if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.

Revisions to the Privacy Policy

We may change this Privacy Policy from time to time. However, when we do, we’ll let you know one way or another. Sometimes, we’ll let you know by revising the date at the top of the Privacy Policy that’s available on our website and mobile application. Other times, we may provide you with additional notice (such as adding a statement to our websites’ homepages or providing you with an in-app notification).

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