In October 2017 the Ministry of Health — Manatū Hauora issued a position statement which said that vaping has the potential to contribute to the achievement of the Smokefree 2025 goal. The work of the Ministry of Health’s and Health Promotion Directorate’s tobacco control programmes aims to improve the wellbeing of New Zealanders by supporting people to quit smoking, creating smokefree environments, and protecting children from the harm of smoking.

This site has information about vaping and smoking in New Zealand, and is for people who are looking to quit smoking and those who support them, as well as anyone interested in the role of vaping in New Zealand as a way to quit.

Under the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Vaping) Amendment Act the existing prohibition on the advertisement of tobacco products is extended to vaping products. This means it is prohibited to encourage the use, promote the sale or notify the availability of vaping products.

This website is an exception to this and the Director-General of Health has issued Vaping Facts (this website) as a public health message under section 24(f) of the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products Act 1990. See the Ministry of Health website for further information: https://www.health.govt.nz/news-media/news-items/public-health-message-issued-vaping-facts

You can contact us at:
Smokefree@TeWhatuOra.govt.nz

Any material on this website may be reproduced provided that:

Please note, this does not apply to any logos, emblems and trade marks on the website, the website’s design elements, or any photography or imagery. If you wish to reproduce any of these, please contact us to discuss: communications@hpa.org.nz

Enquiries

For any queries, please email the Health Promotion Directorate.

For you to get the most out of using our website, Health Promotion Directorate, Te Whatu Ora, “we" or "us" need to collect some personal information about you. We will protect your personal information, and will only collect, use, store, and share it in accordance with the Privacy Act 2020, including (where applicable) the Health Information Privacy Code 2020.

This Privacy Policy sets out information about:

In summary:

This Privacy Policy forms part of the terms of use of our website. Your use of this website means that you accept and agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy and any changes to it.

We may change this Privacy Policy from time to time, including if we want to collect more information about you or use or share your information in another way. This Privacy Policy was last updated in March 2023.

What information do we collect

• Any information you share in the emails you send to our email address.
• Aggregated, anonymous information about visitors to our website.
• Anonymous and aggregated information about visitors to our website including website usage statistics.

How do we use your information

The personal information we collect from you via our website will be used to provide you with the services you have asked us for.

We may use anonymous and aggregated information that we collect about visitors to our website so that we can analyse, evaluate, and improve the website. For more information, see below under the heading Use of cookies and tracking technologies.

Will my information be shared with anyone else?

We may share the personal information that we collect about you as follows:

• when we need to give some employees, contractors, agents and advisers access to the information you provide us to ensure that our website works properly. This includes our providers that host or maintain data centres where your information is processed or stored, or that operate service platforms and other infrastructure and systems on our behalf; and
• as otherwise permitted by the Privacy Act 2020 and where applicable, the Health Information Privacy Code 2020.

We may share anonymous and aggregated information about visitors to our website with public sector health agencies and other organisations and individuals that have an interest in our organisation.

How is my information stored?

We take your privacy seriously and will take all reasonable steps to ensure that your personal information is stored in a secure environment and protected from unauthorised access, use, modification or disclosure.

We store our data (including your personal information) on a secure Microsoft Azure cloud platform and we use Microsoft Office 365 applications. We protect our data with all reasonable technical and process controls. We retain personal information in compliance with the requirements of the Public Records Act 2005.

We store our data, including your personal information, on a secure cloud platform using Microsoft Office 365 applications. We protect the data with all reasonable technical and process controls. We retain personal information in compliance with the requirements of the Public Records Act 2005.

How long is my information held?

We will only hold your personal information as long as it is required for the purposes for which the information may lawfully be used.

Where any information (which may include personal information) provided to us through our website constitutes a public record, it will be retained as required by the Public Records Act 2005.

Exercising your privacy rights and complaints

You can ask us to provide you with the information we hold about you and request corrections to it. If we have a good reason for refusing a request for correction, you are entitled to ask that a statement be attached to the information that the correction that was requested was not made.

If you have any complaints, questions about our privacy practices or procedures please contact us. We may be able to clarify the need for it or work with you to alter it. We will do our best to respond to all reasonable requests in a timely manner.

Contact us:

Privacy Officer
Health Promotion Directorate, Te Whatu Ora
PO Box 2142
Wellington 6140
enquiries@hpa.org.nz

Contact the Privacy Commissioner

If you are not satisfied with our response to any privacy-related concern or you’d like more information on the privacy laws in New Zealand and contact details for the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, please visit the Privacy Commissioner's website.

Cookies and tracking technologies

This website uses cookies and a number of tracking technologies. For more information and instructions on how to switch off cookies click here.

This website collects statistical information which is used for making the site faster and easier to use. Information from your visit is combined with the data from all site visitors and presented as statistical information on overall site use. To do this, the website uses "cookies" and other tracking technologies.

A "cookie" is a file that our webserver may send to your computer when you access this website. This file is then stored on your computer. Vapingfacts.health.nz may use cookies and certain other passive information collection technologies to make your use of this website easier by allowing vapingfacts.health.nz to provide better service, customise websites based on consumer preferences, compile statistics, analyse trends, and otherwise administer and improve this website. Certain features of vapingfacts.health.nz may not work without use of passive information collection technologies.

The website uses "session" cookies. Session cookies are temporary bits of information that are erased once you exit your web browser window or otherwise turn your computer off. Session cookies are used, for example, to improve navigation on this site, and to collect aggregated statistical information.

The website may use "persistent" cookies: Persistent cookies are more permanent bits of information that are placed on the hard drive of your computer and stay there unless you delete the cookie. Persistent cookies store information on your computer for a number of purposes, such as helping to determine what areas of the website visitors find most valuable, and customising the website based on your preferences on an ongoing basis. The website server only knows that an unidentified visitor with your cookies has returned to the website and not any personally identifiable information.

The website may use "web beacons" (also known as internet tags, single-pixel GIFs, clear GIFs, anonymous identifiers and invisible GIFs): a web beacon is a tiny graphic on a web page or in an email message that is used to track pages viewed or messages opened. Web beacons tell the website server information such as the IP address and browser type related to the visitor’s computer. Web beacons may be placed on online advertisements that bring people to hpa.org.nz and on different pages of the website. Web beacons provide us with information on how many times a page is opened and which information is consulted.

The website uses both First Party and Third Party web beacons and cookies. Third Party web beacons and cookies are used for the purpose of marketing this website to people that may find benefit from the services included on the website.

Choices you have about this website’s use of cookies and other tracking technologies

You can choose to enable or disable the use of some cookies and other tracking technologies on this website. Cookies that are necessary to the operation of this website and for the provision of the services you have requested will continue to function regardless of whether you have provided consent. Other types of cookies and tracking technologies will be turned off until you provide explicit consent. As a result, the functionality of hpa.org.nz may be reduced until you choose to provide explicit consent.

Some Internet browsers allow you to limit or disable the use of cookies and other tracking technologies. Please refer to the information provided by your Internet browser for instructions on how to do so (generally found under a "Help" menu).

You can opt-out of any of the Google Analytics Advertising Features by going to https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout/ which is where users can download the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-On.

You can also opt out by going to Google Ad Settings, which allows users to turn off the amount and type of data you are sharing.

More information about opting out can be obtained from http://www.networkadvertising.org/choices/

Other tracking technologies

The following Google Analytics Display Advertising Features are enabled for this website:

The following Adwords Features are enabled for this website:

This means that vapingfacts.health.nz is enabling Google Analytics to collect data about traffic to this site through cookies and anonymous identifiers in addition to data collected through standard Google Analytics implementations.

If you would like to learn about Google’s use of personal data, please view their privacy policy here.

Use of HotJar

We use Hotjar in order to better understand our users’ needs and to optimize this service and experience. 

Hotjar is a technology service that helps us better understand our users experience (e.g. how much time they spend on which pages, which links they choose to click, what users do and don’t like, etc) and this enables us to build and maintain our service with user feedback. Hotjar uses cookies and other technologies to collect data on our users’ behaviour and their devices (in particular device's IP address (captured and stored only in anonymized form), device screen size, device type (unique device identifiers), browser information, geographic location (country only), preferred language used to display our website). Hotjar stores this information in a pseudonymized user profile. Neither Hotjar nor we will ever use this information to identify individual users or to match it with further data on an individual user. For further details, please see Hotjar’s privacy policy by clicking on this link .

You can opt-out to the creation of a user profile, Hotjar’s storing of data about your usage of our site and Hotjar’s use of tracking cookies on other websites by following this opt-out link .

Use of Monsido

Monsido is a monitoring and automation tool used to help improve the website’s user experience and functionality through Web Accessibility, Content Quality Assurance, Data Privacy and Performance among other utilities. We primarily use Monsido to help in the optimisation of our websites to provide users with a better experience.

Contacting vapingfacts.health.nz

If you have questions or complaints about our privacy practices or procedures, please email us at Smokefree@TeWhatuOra.govt.nz as we may be able to clarify the need for it or work with you to alter it. We will do our best to respond to all reasonable requests in a timely manner.

You can also contact the Privacy Officer in writing at:
The Privacy Officer
State Services Commission
PO Box 329 Wellington
Telephone (04) 495 6600
Facsimile (04) 495 6686

How will I know whether vapingfacts.health.nz has updated this policy?

Without prejudice to your rights under applicable law, vapingfacts.health.nz reserves the right to amend this Privacy Policy without prior notice to reflect technological advancements, legal and regulatory changes, and good business practices. vapingfacts.health.nz may modify this Privacy Policy at any time and such modifications will be effective immediately on posting on vapingfacts.health.nz.