Meridian Careers Privacy Statement

Approved date: July 2023

1. INTRODUCTION

Meridian Energy Limited is strongly committed to protecting your personal information and ensuring that we deal with your personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act 2020 (the “Act”). When we refer to your “personal information” we mean any information that identifies you, such as your name or contact information. In this policy “Meridian”, “we”, “us” or “our” means or refers to Meridian Energy Limited and our related companies.

By submitting your application on our Careers page, you are deemed to have agreed to this Careers Privacy Statement. If you are a third party submitting an application on behalf of someone else, you will need to obtain consent of the individual before submitting their personal information.

We may change this Careers Privacy Statement from time to time. We will tell you about changes by posting an updated policy on our customer website (www.meridianenergy.co.nz). These changes will apply from the date of publication (unless we specifically state otherwise).

2. PURPOSE

This Careers Privacy Statement sets out how we will comply with our obligations under the Act when you apply to become, or are, an employee of ours, including:

  • the kinds of personal information that we collect and hold about you;
  • how and when your personal information is collected, disclosed and used by us;
  • the purposes for which we collect, hold, use and disclose personal information; and
  • how you may access your personal information and seek correction of your personal information.

Further information about privacy and your rights under the Act can be found at www.privacy.org.nz.

3. INFORMATION WE COLLECT AND HOW WE COLLECT IT

When you apply to work with us, and when you are employed by us, we may collect a variety of information about you (including by conducting pre-employment screening checks), such as:

  • Contact information – e.g. name, age, email address, physical address and telephone number.
  • Unique identifiers – this is an identifier that is assigned to you as an employee of ours.
  • Employment information – e.g. education, experience and previous work history and other information you may provide to us in your CV (e.g. confirmation or professional memberships).
  • Reference checks – from referees you have nominated.
  • Immigration status – about your visa conditions if you are not a New Zealand citizen.
  • Specific testing – e.g. results from psychometric, skills or drug testing.
  • Financial information – e.g. bank account details.
  • Sensitive information – e.g. health, medical history or criminal history, immigration status.

We need to collect this information in order to meet our obligations to you as an employer and to meet our legal obligations in respect of health and safety and employment practices.

Where required by law, or relevant to particular position, we may also conduct some, or all of the following pre-employment screening checks:

  • criminal history
  • credit check / bankruptcy
  • directorship search
  • company checks

We may collect your personal information in a variety of ways including:

  • directly from you – e.g. when you complete an application for employment;
  • From third parties – e.g. from your nominated referees, police vetting information or credit check scores (where this is relevant to your employment).
  • From information generated during your employment – e.g. information about your employment status and terms of employment.

We will only collect information from third parties with your consent.

4. USE AND DISCLOSURE OF YOUR INFORMATION

We may collect, use and disclose information we hold about you for the purposes of assessing your suitability for employment and, if applicable, your ongoing employment relationship with us. This may include:

  • deciding on your employment application, including verifying your qualifications and assessing your suitability for the job/s you apply for or other roles within Meridian;
  • determining your pay and other entitlements;
  • corresponding with you;
  • administering your employment and the technology we provide to you for your employment;
  • managing your performance and determining your development and training requirements;
  • complying with legislative reporting and recordkeeping requirements; and
  • administering and monitoring the technology and services we provide you to fulfil your role in Meridian.

We will only use and disclose personal information for the purpose for which it was initially collected. We may need to share your personal information internally with people who have a legitimate role in the recruitment, management, administration and safety of our employees (for example, members of our People Team and your manager). We’ll only share information when, and to the extent, it is necessary to achieve our purposes.

We may also need to share your personal information with external parties or agencies as part of managing your employment. If personal information is provided to third parties to enable them to perform the agreed tasks, we will take reasonable measures to ensure that the supplier handles the personal information in accordance with the Act.

If your employment with us ceases, then you agree that we can retain your personal information where we need to, including to meet our legal obligations and for legitimate business purposes.

5. STORAGE AND SECURITY OF YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

We are committed to keeping personal information secure and safe. Some of the ways we do this include:

  • requiring employees and contractors to enter into confidentiality agreements;
  • securing hard copy document storage (i.e. storing hard copy documents in locked filing cabinets);
  • implementing security measures for access to computer systems;
  • using password protected data storage devices;
  • providing a discrete environment for confidential discussions; and

Although we take all reasonable steps to secure personal information from loss, misuse, and unauthorised access, we will not be held responsible for such actions where the security of the personal information is not within our control or we cannot reasonably prevent such an incident.

As part of our online recruitment process we use a third party recruitment service (currently provided by SmartRecruiters Inc) which Meridian may replace with an alternative product or service, and an alternative provider, from time to time (the “Recruitment Service Provider”). When you submit an online job application, your personal information may be stored on the Recruitment Service Provider’s database. The Recruitment Service Provider must meet stringent privacy obligations with regard to access, storage and handling of your personal information. See the Recruitment Service Provider’s Candidate Privacy Policy to understand how they access, store and handle your personal information.

6. RIGHT TO ACCESS AND CORRECT

You may request access to any personal information we hold about you by contacting the People team or your Meridian recruitment contact. To ensure that the information we hold about you during your employment is accurate and current, you can update your details via PeopleLink.

You may access your online SmartRecruiters account to update, create new applications and activate or deactivate your registration for job mail at any time. Should you wish to remove your account, please contact your Meridian recruitment contact.