Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

Fishtailz is operated by Fishy Business 2026 Limited (NZBN 9429053728753), a company registered in New Zealand ("we", "us", "our").

We are an "agency" under the Privacy Act 2020 and this policy explains how we collect, use, store, share and protect personal information.

Contact us about privacy at legal@fishtailz.com.

2. What this policy covers

This policy covers the Fishtailz website at fishtailz.com, our web application, and our mobile applications when released.

Where a fishing club, association or charter operator uses Fishtailz to manage its members or customers, both that organisation and we hold responsibilities for the information involved. The organisation decides what member information to collect and load into Fishtailz; we store and process it on their behalf and also use it to provide your individual account. If you have questions about information your club holds about you, contact your club directly in the first instance.

3. Information we collect

Information you give us

• Account details — name, display name, email address, and a password. Passwords are handled by Amazon Cognito and are never visible to us.
• Profile details — optional, such as a profile photo, home region, and the clubs or associations you belong to.
• Profile details — optional, such as vessel details (including registration details), VHF call signs, Coastguard membership details.
• Contact enquiries — anything you send us through a contact or interest form.

Information your club, association or charter operator gives us

• Membership records, including name, contact details, membership type and status, membership number, renewal and expiry dates, and payment history.
• Competition entries, catches, weights, placings and prizes.
• Any additional data you authorise clubs to collect and retain — for example emergency contacts, boat details, or dietary requirements for events.

Information you create using Fishtailz

• Trips and catches — dates, times, species, measurements, notes, and photographs.
• Location information — where you manually record trip information such as the location of a departure, intended destination, intended return time, intended arrival location. Where you manually tag the location when recording catch details, either through the image or through the Fishtailz user interface.
• Social activity — who you follow, and any comments or reactions.

Information collected automatically

• Usage analytics via Umami, a privacy-focused analytics service that does not use cookies for tracking and does not build cross-site profiles of individuals.
• Technical information such as browser type, device type, and approximate region derived from your IP address.
• Security logs including sign-in times and IP addresses.

Payment information

Membership, event tickets and subscription payments will be processed by Stripe. We do not receive or store your full card details. We retain a record of the amount, date, status, and a payment reference.

4. Why we collect it and how we use it

We use personal information to:

• create and administer your account and verify who you are;
• provide the service — memberships, renewals, competitions, results, prizes, trip logging and social features;
• allow your club, association or charter operator to administer its membership and events;
• process payments and issue receipts and renewal reminders;
• send service communications such as confirmations, renewal notices and security alerts;
• respond to your enquiries;
• keep the service secure, investigate misuse, and meet legal obligations;
• understand how the service is used, in aggregate, so we can improve it;
• keep you informed of newsletters, regional policy changes/notices, upcoming events and specific sponsor promotions or competitions, as you opt in/out of in your profile settings.

We do not sell personal information.

5. Who we share it with

Your club, association or charter operator

If you are a member of an organisation on Fishtailz, its administrators can see your membership record, your entries and results in its competitions, and your membership and payment status. The club cannot see any details regarding any other club you may be a member of.

Where a club belongs to an association, the association can see that you are an affiliated member through that club, along with information relevant to association competitions and records.

Other users

What other anglers can see depends on your visibility settings.

In the case of club or promoter competitions, the information published via Fishtailz is aligned with the conditions of the ticket or entry for the applicable competition and is managed by that club or promoter.

In all other cases, anonymised information regarding results, catches and locations will be displayed on leaderboards etc unless you specifically allow sharing by opting in on your profile.

Sponsors

Sponsors are shown prize winners' names where prizes have been awarded. Any further information will be in line with the conditions of the ticket or entry as applicable.

Service providers

We use third parties to run the service. They may access personal information only as needed to perform their function:

Others

We may disclose information where required by law, to enforce our terms, to protect someone's safety, or in connection with a sale or restructure of the business.

6. Where your information is stored — overseas storage

Your personal information is stored on Amazon Web Services infrastructure located in Australia (the Sydney region), not in New Zealand. Some of our other providers store information in other countries, as set out above.

We have chosen providers we consider subject to comparable privacy safeguards, as required by information privacy principle 12 of the Privacy Act 2020.

7. Junior members and children

• The minimum age for holding an individual Fishtailz paid account is 18.
• Junior accounts are allowed in order to administer club competition participation.
• Junior members are permitted and will be administered by a parent or guardian through a parent account.
• For competition entries, junior members' data and personally identifiable information will be shown on the club's portal, leaderboards etc in line with the specific conditions of the ticket or entry for the applicable competition, as approved by the parent or guardian.
• In all other cases, anonymised information regarding results, catches and locations will be displayed on leaderboards etc, flagged as Junior and/or an age bracket.

8. How long we keep it

We keep personal information only as long as needed for the purposes above, or as required by law.

• Account and profile — while your account is active, then 12 months after closure.
• Membership and payment records — 7 years, to meet business record-keeping obligations under the Tax Administration Act.
• Competition results and records — in line with the club's information retention policy, as these form a club's or association's historical record.
• Trips, catches and photos — while your account is active; deleted with your account.
• Security and access logs — 12 months.

9. Your rights

Under the Privacy Act 2020 you have the right to:

• access the personal information we hold about you;
• correct it if it is wrong, or attach a statement of correction if we decline;
• withdraw consent where we rely on it;
• close your account and have your personal information deleted, subject to the retention exceptions above.

To exercise any of these, contact us at legal@fishtailz.com. We will respond within 20 working days as required by the Act.

Note that some information is held by your club rather than by us in a way we cannot independently alter — for example your membership history. We will work with your club to resolve such requests.

10. How we protect information

• All traffic is encrypted in transit using HTTPS.
• Information is encrypted at rest.
• Passwords are managed by Amazon Cognito and never stored by us in readable form.
• Access to production systems is restricted and protected by multi-factor authentication.
• We keep access logs and review them.

No system is completely secure. If a privacy breach occurs that causes or is likely to cause serious harm, we will notify the Office of the Privacy Commissioner and affected individuals as required by the Privacy Act 2020.

11. Cookies and analytics

At present the Fishtailz site uses Umami for tracking site statistics, which is cookieless. Authentication requires session cookies, which are strictly necessary and cannot be declined while remaining signed in.

12. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy. Material changes will be notified by email or an in-app notice before they take effect. The date at the top shows the current version.

13. Complaints

If you are not satisfied with our response, you may complain to:

Office of the Privacy Commissioner
Website: privacy.org.nz
Phone: 0800 803 909