Privacy and Security

Your privacy

 

  • Your personal information
  • Cookies
  • Links to other websites
  • Your privacy rights

This privacy statement describes how Backyard Tours Limited collects your personal information, and how we protect your privacy.

Your privacy

 

Our commitment to your privacy

Backyard Tours Limited is a small family business that services customer’s needs of transport shuttles and transfers to and from the Tongariro Alpine Crossing, Ruapehu Whakapapa ski fields, or a Custom transfer Airport, Train, Groups, Schools, Events, or Corporate Activities. Suitable vehicles for two persons or groups. We provide transport services to help customers reach their destination safely, hassle and stress free, an enjoyable and memorable experience. We help to make informed decisions about products and services, including offering advice on the most appropriate and cost-effective services, and to the importance of outdoor safety. Respecting one’s safety measures, caring for others, and preserving conservation, when participating with any one activity at one’s own risk in and around the Central North Island of Taupo, Turangi, Tongariro, Ruapehu, National Park Village that consists of fishing, hunting, hiking, biking, walks, rafting, canoeing, geothermal hot pools just to name some.

This privacy statement outlines what personal information we collect, how we store it, use and share it, and how you can access or correct your personal information. We are committed to protecting your privacy when you visit our websites, social media, or contact us in any way with our products and services.

We collect your personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act 2020 and this privacy statement.

This privacy statement may be amended at any one time without notice or liability, to reflect any changes to our business operations for your privacy protection. This statement was last updated on 19 August 2025.

Your personal information

 

Collecting your personal information

We collect personal information that we need in order to deliver our services to you. We collect personal information directly from you when you access our services or engage with us through our websites, social media, recorded telephone or messaging, or any other marketing materials for contact engagement.

 

Information collected from you

When you access any of our products of services (including our promotions, feedback with reviews, responding to surveys, contacting us with a business enquiry, signing up for newsletters, activating new registration accounts, we will collect some or all of the following personal information:

  • Your name and contact details.
  • Age, gender ethnicity and any other demographic information you provide to us.
  • Your address or region information.
  • Your health and fitness well-being.
  • Your digital signature.
  • In-vehicle cameras operating.
  • Vehicle-sourced data systems collect information for its condition and performance including mileage, fuel and other operational data.
  • Your comments and community contributions.
  • Survey results and responses, when you participate in any of our surveys.
  • Any correspondence with Backyard Tours Limited staff
  • Website activity.
  • Social Media activity.
  • Marketing promotion materials.
  • Competitions.
  • Premises operating with security surveillance.
  • Telephone, or Messaging conversations.
  • Transaction history.
  • Your credit card number, name on your card, expiry date and card verification code (CVC) code*.
  • Any other information you choose to provide us.

Collectively, this is known as your “personal information".

Note: We do not store full credit card details. These are captured directly by STRIPE, a Payment processing software and application programming interfaces for e-commerce websites, and mobile applications. An Industry Data Security Standard compliant payment provider, which will only deal with your personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act and its privacy policy.

 

Information collected from third parties

We may collect information from third parties of your personal information to enhance our services such as analytic providers and advertising networks, or a third party travel, transport, booking, agent, for your identity and contact data upon booking or applying for contract of products or services, through interactions including transactions with our service providers. We also collect, use and share statistical, demographic or similar data, which may be derived from your personal data but is not personal data as it does not directly or indirectly reveal your identity. This is not limited, nor exhausted to other relationships of businesses networking in this industry with other stakeholder interests.

Refusal to provide your personal data: You do not have to provide your personal data when we request it, but if you choose not to, we may advise you that we may not be able to enter into or perform any booking request or contract agreement with or for you.

 

Using your personal information

To deliver our services (whether through Backyard Tours Limited), we use your personal information in the ways set out below. If we need to use information in a way not outlined below, we will only do so if required or permitted by law or with your authorisation.

We use your personal information to:

  • Provide you with any products and services you request or sign up for.
  • Set up or administer your booking or membership or digital activation registration access.
  • Contact you to clarify details about your booking, contract or digital access, or to respond to any of your enquiries.
  • Invoice you, or receive payment from you, for any of our services that require payment
  • Conduct market research surveys if you opt-in to receive Backyard Tours Limited surveys.
  • Target or customise our marketing and advertising.
  • Tell you about our new products, services, promotions and campaigns. For example, if you are opted-in to email marketing communications we may email you to let you know about new content you may be interested in.
  • Provide you with information about the operation and security of our technology websites.
  • Provide you with information about the business operations weather permitting, payments, or other options available.
  • Tell your information to the relevant authorities if we believe you require immediate help or medical assistance. ie; Emergency services; Search and Rescue, Police, Ambulance etc.
  • Contact you to advise you of changes to our terms and conditions, services or new products or promotions.

 

Email communications

All Backyard Tours Limited customers and digital activated registration access holders will be signed up to automatically receive email marketing communications, including surveys. For all our marketing emails, you can choose to remove yourself from receiving these communications by following the "unsubscribe" prompt at the bottom of each email or an email of reply to stop.

 

Comments and community contributions

We may use some of your information to display it within any one of marketing campaigns, promotions, advertising, newsletters, for Customer comments section. When you submit a comment or review, your first name, or last name initial e.g. Mary B, or your display name (if you have set one), is displayed with your comment. You can request to change your display name at any time.

We do not publicly display any other personal information in our community areas. We strongly advise that you do not post your email address, home address, phone number or other personal information as part of your community contributions. Sometimes, we might want to use the messages you post on social media links or website backyardtours.com in any one of our articles or marketing material. If so, we will endeavour to get your permission before copying or quoting your message.

 

Sharing your personal information

We do not sell or rent your personal information to any third party. However, we do share your personal information with trusted third parties that work on our behalf to deliver our services to you (such as for computing and storage purposes, for email correspondence and marketing purposes and to assist you in multibookings).

Third parties, some of which are based overseas, which we share your personal information with include but is not limited; nor exhausted:

  • Microsoft, our cloud hosting and computing infrastructure provider
  • Marketo, for marketing automation and email marketing.
  • Survey Gizmo, and occasionally Survey Monkey, to send you our surveys.
  • Amazon Web Services (AWS), our cloud hosting service provider.
  • Stripe, our payment gateway provider.
  • Fareharbor, customer management system service provider.
  • Viator, our booking platform and reviews service provider.
  • Google Analytics and Google Ad Manager, for targeted advertising.
  • Social Media Platforms (Facebook and Instagram), for targeted advertising.

We do not authorise third parties to use or disclose your personal information except for the purpose of providing the service we request from them. All third parties, which we disclose your personal information to, are subject to obligations under the New Zealand Privacy Act 2020 to protect your information from unauthorised use or disclosure.

You can choose to opt out of having your email address provided to Google and Facebook for targeted advertising by emailing us with your request to enquiries@backyardtours.com.

We do not share your personal information with any overseas providers which are not subject to the New Zealand Privacy Act. If we were to do so, we would obtain prior authorisation from you before we disclose it to
any such third parties.

 

How we store and protect personal information

We store your personal information we collect from you in accordance with our obligations under the Privacy Act and take reasonable steps to ensure the security of your personal information. We use trusted third-party providers to store and process our data and ensure that our cloud-based platforms meet New Zealand privacy requirements. For more information on privacy practices for our key third party providers, see the following links:

 

Retention

We retain personal information only for as long as we need it in order to continue to provide you with our service(s), maintain the security of our websites or as required by law.

 

Security

We take all reasonable steps to ensure the personal information we collect is protected against loss, unauthorised access and disclosure or any other misuse. We have an information and communications technology policy in place to ensure staff manage and protect Backyard Tours Limited data and devices. Access to our systems and platforms is controlled, through role-based access, and all access is logged and audited.

Cookies

We use cookies and web beacons to help us understand how visitors engage with our website and services.

  • These technologies allow us to:
    Improve our website (for example, identify and promote popular content); and
  • Provide you with more targeted information where appropriate.

Temporary cookies: We use temporary (per-session) cookies to "remember" that a customer, digital access registration account or user has logged in. This means you do not have to enter your email address and password more than once during a visit.

Please note: Our temporary cookies must be accepted to login and access backyardtours.com, or to purchase a product of service or digital access registration from us. If your browser is set to notify you when you receive a cookie, you will be prompted to accept the cookie. Please select "Yes".

Our temporary cookies will disappear when you logout of your member or digital access registration account.

Important: You should not use a “remember my login” feature on a browser unless you are the only person who has access to the browser. Never enable this feature on a public access computer as this could allow other people to access your personal information.

Third party cookies and other technologies: We use third party cookies and other technologies for marketing and to gather website analytics. This includes:

  • Remarketing and emails: we use third party cookies – such as Google Analytics and Marketo cookies – to keep track of the content you’re interested in and remarket it to you when you leave our site (as a result, you may see ads from Backyard Tours Limited when you visit other websites).
  • Impression reporting: we use web beacons to estimate the number of users that have viewed and clicked on our advertisements (as a result, we’re able to gauge the success of a campaign).
  • Demographics and interest reporting: we use cookies and web beacons to get an overview of our readership broken down by age, gender and interests such as behaviour or technology (as a result, we can provide you with relevant information, services and features and also gauge the popularity of our content).

You can opt out of Google Analytics without affecting how you visit our site. For more information on opting out, please visit this page.

For more information on Marketo, our third party inbound marketing and sales software, please visit this page. You can also ask your browser to delete or block third party cookies: simply search online for “cookies” + the name of your internet browser (for example, “Google Chrome”) for step-by-step instructions.

Links to other websites

Our websites provide links to other websites when we consider you may be interested in the content of those sites. We do not endorse any third party sites or their content and we have no control over the conduct of the companies or organisations operating those sites.

Before you disclose any personal information to another site, we advise you to check its terms and conditions, including its privacy and security policies.

Your privacy rights

You have the right to request access to and correct any personal information we hold about you at any time. Backyard Tours Limited customers and digital access registration users can change their information on by entering your email address and password and updating your personal profile.

Alternatively, you can contact Customer Services on +64(0)22 314 2656 or at enquiries@backyardtours.com.

 

Rights of access

You have the right to request a copy of the personal information we hold about you. When any such request is received, we will process your request as soon as possible and provide you with our decision on your request within 20 working days after your request. We will also take steps to verify your identity before providing you with any requested personal information.

 

Asking us to stop using your information

You can ask us to stop using your information. However, if you ask us to stop using your information, we may not be able to provide you with all our services, such as emailing you newsletters and updates.

You can choose to opt out of having your email address provided to Google and Facebook for targeted advertising by emailing us with your request to enquiries@backyardtours.com.

 

Complaints

Backyard Tours Limited is committed to dealing quickly and appropriately with any privacy complaints.

If you are concerned this privacy statement may have been breached or your privacy has been compromised, please email us immediately on enquiries@backyardtours.com or call customer services on +64(0)22 314 2656.

If we cannot adequately address your privacy concerns, you have the right to complain to the Office of th Privacy Commissioner. For more information on privacy see the Privacy Commissioner's website.

 

Other information

You can find more information about our policies for protecting your personal information in our terms and conditions and our security policy.

Security of personal information

 

  • Protecting your personal information
  • Security of access
  • Security enforcement
  • Contact us

This information security policy describes how Backyard Tours Limited are committed to ensuring your information is secure.

We maintain a secure process for the collection, transmission, and storage of your personal information. Backyard Tours Limited suggests website users keep their browsers up to date to ensure a high level of security is maintained. If you use an old browser it may make it harder for you to use modern websites or could allow malicious websites to read your files, steal passwords and infect your computer.

Backyardtours.com no longer supports older versions of Internet Explorer.

Protecting your personal information

If you access any of our services (including supporting our campaigns, contacting us with a Consumer Trusted business enquiry or signing up for our newsletters), you will need to provide us with some or all of the following personal information:

  • Your name.
  • Your email address.
  • Your residential or postal address.
  • Your credit card number, name on your card, expiry date and card verification code (CVC) code.

Your personal information is protected by encryption, so it cannot be read as it is transmitted over the internet. The encrypted data is transmitted using a Secure Socket Layer (SSL) connection.

 

How to tell if a website is secure

Look for one or more of these "secure connection" indicators on your browser before providing any personal information:

  • A security alert window may tell you that you are about to use a non-secure connection. Most browsers
    present a warning letting you choose whether to proceed or not.
  • A SSL icon, usually a padlock, shows when your connection is secure.
  • The website's address will begin with "https" (check for the "s") if it is secure

 

Your account details

When you become a customer you set up a Backyard Tours Limited account as part of the sign up process. Personal information, excluding credit card details, is transferred to a customer management system using a
secure transfer mechanism.

Your account details are stored securely in our customer management system and by some third party service
providers on our behalf.

You can review your personal information and update it as necessary. You can only access your personal information by entering your email address and password or by contacting Backyard Tours Limited directly.

 

Credit card details

Your credit card details are not handled or stored by us. They are captured directly by a Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard compliant payment provider.

Security of access

Each time you log on to backyardtours.com, you will be asked to enter your email address and password.

Please keep your password confidential.

You can change your password and any personal information we hold about you at any time. You can do this by logging in to backyardtours.com, clicking on the member icon (at the top right of the page) and updating your profile settings.

Alternatively, you can contact customer services on +64(0)22 314 2656 or at enquiries@backyardtours.com.

Automatic login

You can save your login details on your browser so you don’t have to manually login each time you visit our site from that browser.

Only use the automatic login feature on private computers which only you have access to. Never enable this feature on a publicly accessible computer.

If you suspect your password has been disclosed to a third party, or that your account has been compromised by a third party, you must change your password and inform us immediately.

Under our terms and conditions, you are responsible for ensuring there is no unauthorised use of the site under your login.

Security enforcement

You must tell us immediately about any unauthorised access or use of any Backyard Tours Limited web service or information collected and maintained by us.

We will investigate any violation of the security of your personal information that we’re told about and if necessary, take action to prevent any further violations.

In the unlikely event that we believe the security of your personal information in our possession or control may have been compromised, we will immediately do all things necessary to contain and manage the potential breach.

Contact us

If you are concerned that this information security policy may have been breached or the security of your personal information has been compromised, please email us immediately at enquiries@backyardtours.com or
call customer services on +64(0)22 314 2656.

More information about our policies for protecting your personal information can be found in our terms and conditions and our privacy policy.