How we protect your data

How we think about your data

• We only ask for what the planner needs. We never ask for your address or the names of your children.
• We use information only for the reason we collected it, and we never sell it.
• Your plans, pantry and recipes are yours. You can see them, change them and have them deleted.
• We follow the 13 information privacy principles of the New Zealand Privacy Act 2020.

Keeping it safe

• Everything between your device and the planner travels encrypted, over HTTPS.
• Passwords are stored scrambled with a one-way hash, so nobody, including us, can read them.
• Card details go straight from your browser to Stripe and never touch our servers. Stripe is certified to the highest level of the card industry's security standard, PCI DSS.
• Each household's information is kept apart: the planner checks whose it is every time it is asked for.
• Only the few people who run the planner can reach its servers and database, each with their own login. HelpingHand staff look at a household's plan only to help it or put a problem right.
• Access keys for connected AI assistants are kept only as scrambled fingerprints. They expire, and you can remove them at any time from your account.
• The database is backed up every night to private, encrypted storage, so a fault cannot lose your plans.

Where your data is held

• Our servers, database, backups and recipe photos are held by Amazon Web Services in Sydney, Australia.
• Some of the companies below handle information in other countries, mostly the United States.
• Before personal information goes overseas, we make sure the company receiving it protects it in ways comparable to the New Zealand Privacy Act, as principle 12 of the Act requires.

Who handles data for us

These companies handle some of your information to run part of the planner. The ones working for us may only use it to do that.

• Amazon Web Services (Australia): our servers, database, backups and recipe photos, and reading replies out loud.
• Amazon Simple Email Service (United States): sending your account and payment emails.
• Stripe (United States and elsewhere): taking card payments.
• Anthropic (United States): the AI behind HelpingHand AI and the home page chat.
• Google (United States): placing the postcode you give us, to find your nearest supermarkets.
• Google and Facebook (United States): signing you in, only if you choose to.
• The AI assistant you connect, such as Anthropic for Claude or OpenAI for ChatGPT: only if you connect one. It works for you, under that company's own privacy policy.
• The company behind your browser, such as Google for Chrome: turning your voice into words, only if you talk to the planner.

AI and your data

• When you use HelpingHand AI, Anthropic gets your first name, your messages and the parts of your plan, pantry and preferences it needs to answer them.
• It never gets your email address, your password or your card details.
• Under Anthropic's commercial terms, what we send it is not used to train its AI models.
• You can switch HelpingHand AI off at any time and plan with your own AI, or with none.

How long we keep things

We keep information only for as long as we need it.

• Your account, household details, plans, pantry and recipes: for as long as you have an account.
• When you ask us to delete your account: gone from the planner within 30 days, including the record of what connected AI assistants asked it to do.
• HelpingHand AI conversations: 12 hours after the last message.
• The home page chat: not kept on our servers. The count used to limit how often it is asked is kept for a day.
• Replies read out loud: the audio is kept for up to 30 days, so the same words do not have to be made twice.
• Server logs: only as long as we need them to keep the planner running and track down faults.
• Backups: daily backups are deleted after 7 days and weekly backups after 31 days. Monthly backups are kept longer, only to recover from a disaster. If we ever restore one, we delete again any account that asked to be deleted.
• Payment records: seven years, because New Zealand tax law requires it.

If something goes wrong

• If information may have been lost, or seen or changed by someone who should not have it, we act straight away to stop it and find out what happened.
• If it could cause anyone serious harm, we tell the Privacy Commissioner and the people affected as soon as we practicably can, as the Privacy Act requires, and say what you can do to protect yourself.
• Afterwards, we fix whatever let it happen.

Asking for your information

• You can ask for a copy of what we hold about you, or ask us to correct or delete it, by emailing our privacy officer at nathan@helpinghand.nz or support@helpinghand.nz.
• We check it is really you first, usually by replying to the email address on your account.
• We reply within 20 working days, as the Privacy Act requires.
• It costs you nothing.

Our privacy officer

• Our privacy officer, Nathan O'Hanlon, looks after how we handle personal information and answers privacy questions. Email nathan@helpinghand.nz.
• If you are not happy with our answer, you can complain to the Privacy Commissioner at privacy.org.nz.