Privacy Policy

This website (arknova.co.nz) is operated by Ark Nova (sole trader), trading as Ark Nova Sustainability Consultancy, NZBN 9429051692308, based in Christchurch, New Zealand. This policy explains what information we collect from visitors, why, and what rights you have over it.

Information we collect

• Contact form: if you get in touch through our contact page, we collect your first and last name, email address, company (optional), subject, and message. We also automatically record the page you came from, your IP address, and your browser's user agent — used to prevent abuse and spam, in the same way most websites log this information.
• Newsletter: if you subscribe to our newsletter, we collect your email address and name, and record whether you've confirmed your subscription (double opt-in) and whether you're still active. Our newsletter is currently paused while we improve its spam protection, but any existing subscriber information is retained under this policy and you can still unsubscribe at any time.
• Cookies: used for basic site security (CSRF protection). We also use Google reCAPTCHA on the contact form to block automated spam submissions — this loads a script from Google and is subject to Google's own Privacy Policy.
• We do not require an account to use this site, and there is no public commenting or user-generated content — only what you choose to submit via the contact form or newsletter signup.

How we use it

• To respond to enquiries submitted through the contact form.
• To send newsletter emails to confirmed subscribers, and to honour unsubscribe requests.
• To detect and prevent spam and abuse — including blocking IP addresses associated with abusive or automated behaviour.
• To keep the site secure and functioning correctly.

Sharing and cross-border transfers

We don't sell your information. Running this site does mean some data is processed by service providers based overseas, which is a routine part of most modern websites:

• Hostinger — sends our emails (contact-form notifications and newsletter mail).
• Google — reCAPTCHA (spam protection on the contact form), Google Fonts (loads our site's typeface), and the YouTube Data API (powers video thumbnails on our homepage).
• jsDelivr — a content delivery network that serves the Bootstrap framework our site's layout is built on.
• Bing, Yandex, and Seznam — when we publish a new article, its URL (not any personal data) is sent to these search engines via IndexNow so it can be indexed faster.

Each of these providers only receives what's needed to perform their specific function, under their own privacy and security commitments.

Data retention

We keep contact-form submissions and newsletter subscriber information for as long as we need it for the purposes above. We don't currently run an automatic deletion schedule, so if you'd like your information removed sooner, contact us and we'll action it within a reasonable time — except where we're required to keep something (for example, records needed to prevent abuse).

Your rights

Under New Zealand's Privacy Act 2020 (and equivalent protections if you're visiting from elsewhere, such as the EU/UK GDPR), you can ask us to:

• Tell you what personal information we hold about you.
• Correct information that's wrong or out of date.
• Delete your information.
• Restrict or object to how we use your information.

To exercise any of these, contact us at daniel.panjaitan@arknova.co.nz.

Security

We take reasonable technical and organisational steps to protect the information you share with us. No method of transmission or storage is perfectly secure, but we work to keep your data safe from unauthorised access.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time — the "Last updated" date at the top will always reflect the latest version.

Contact

Questions about this policy or your data: daniel.panjaitan@arknova.co.nz