Privacy Policy

We look after your car, and we look after your information too. This policy explains, in plain language, what we collect, why, who we share it with, and how you can see or change it. It follows the New Zealand Privacy Act 2020.

If you have a question, just ask. Our contact details are at the bottom of this page.

What we collect

We only collect what we need to look after you and your vehicle.

About you

Your name, and your company name if it’s a company vehicle
Mobile number and email address
Home or postal address
Notes about what you’d like done, and anything else you tell us

About your vehicle

Registration (number plate), make, model and year
Odometer reading, and the work we’ve done on it over time
WoF inspection results

When you book or agree to our terms

The services you book, the day and time, and whether you’re waiting or dropping your car off
When you agreed to our Terms of Trade, and your reply saying so

When you use our website

What you type into our booking chat or our website chat assistant (Axel)
What you send through our contact, fleet enquiry or job application forms
How you use the site, such as the pages you visit and the type of device and browser you use (see “Cookies and website analytics” below)

When you pay

Invoice and payment records. Card payments go through the EFTPOS terminal at our counter. We never see or store your full card number.

How we collect it

From you: in person, over the phone, by email, or through our website
From your vehicle, when we inspect or work on it
From the people who look after a fleet vehicle, if you drive one of their cars
From your browser automatically when you use our website (cookies and analytics)
From our security cameras (CCTV) at the workshop

Why we use it

To book your vehicle in and confirm your booking
To carry out the work, keep you updated while your car is with us, and explain what we found
To keep a service history, so we know your car and can give you good advice
To send reminders when your WoF or service is due. You can ask us to stop these at any time.
To invoice you, take payment and keep accounting records
To record WoF inspections and vehicle licensing with NZTA Waka Kotahi, as the law requires
To recognise you when you book online again, so you don’t have to re-enter your details
To answer your questions and improve our website and service
To meet our legal obligations

We don’t sell your information, and we don’t use it for anything you wouldn’t expect.

Our online booking chat

When you book online, our booking chat asks for your details one question at a time, like our booking form used to. It’s an automated assistant (it uses an AI model to understand your answers), not a person.

When you confirm your booking:

Your booking request goes into our workshop system (MechanicDesk)
The team receives your booking request by email
If you pick a WoF time, it’s added to our workshop calendar (Google Calendar). We don’t invite you to the calendar event or email you from it.
Your name, mobile, rego, email, address and Terms of Trade agreement are saved, so the chat can recognise you next time

How we recognise you: the chat only recognises you when your mobile number and rego both match a previous online booking. Even then, it never shows your saved details. It only shows a partly hidden email address for you to confirm.

Your booking isn’t confirmed until our team confirms it by text or email.

Our website chat assistant (Axel)

Axel answers common questions using only the information on our website and in our FAQs. It’s an automated assistant, not a person. Please don’t type personal or sensitive information into it.

If Axel can’t answer a question, we keep the question so we can improve our answers. We may review those questions.

Security cameras (CCTV)

We have security cameras at our workshop, and signs to let you know they’re there. They help keep your car, our team and our customers safe, and help us look into any damage, theft or incidents.

Only our team can view the footage, and only when there’s a reason to.
Footage is recorded over automatically after a short time, unless we need to keep it to look into an incident.
We only share footage with the Police or our insurer if it’s needed to look into an incident, or if the law requires it.

You can ask to see footage of yourself. Just contact us and we’ll help where we can, while protecting the privacy of other people in the footage.

Cookies and website analytics

Our website uses cookies and similar tools:

Cookies that make the site work. These keep the site secure and remember things like your progress in the booking chat.
Google Tag Manager and analytics tools. These show us how people use the site, such as which pages are popular, so we can make it better. They collect information like your device, browser, rough location and the pages you visit. They don’t tell us who you are.
Facebook (Meta) Pixel. This shows us whether our Facebook and Instagram ads lead to visits or bookings, and lets us show our ads to people who’ve visited our site. Meta handles this information under its own privacy policy, and you can manage your ad settings in your Facebook account.
Our YouTube video. It uses YouTube’s privacy-enhanced mode, which doesn’t set YouTube tracking cookies until you press play.

You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings. The site will still work, although the booking chat may not remember where you were up to.

We only share what’s needed, and only for the reasons above.

NZTA Waka Kotahi: WoF inspection results and vehicle licensing details, as the law requires.
The businesses that help us run the workshop, for example:
- Our workshop management system (MechanicDesk)
- Our accounting system (Xero)
- Our email, calendar and file storage (Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace)
- Our website hosting (Awesomate), with our blog, FAQ and website forms run through Wix
- Our website analytics and advertising (Google Analytics and Meta)
- Our booking chat and website assistant (Awesomate), and the AI services they use to understand messages
- Our forms (Wix Forms and JotForm)
- Our EFTPOS payment provider (Windcave)
These businesses only use your information to provide their service to us.
Fleet and company account holders: if you drive a company or fleet vehicle, we share information about that vehicle’s work with the account holder.
When the law requires it, or to prevent a serious threat to someone’s health or safety.

Some of these providers store information on servers outside New Zealand, such as in Australia or the United States. We choose well-known providers who protect information to standards comparable to New Zealand’s.

How we keep it safe

Our systems are password protected, and only our team can see customer information.
Our providers use secure, encrypted connections.
The online booking chat never shows anyone else’s saved details.

No system is completely risk-free. If a privacy breach is likely to cause someone serious harm, we’ll tell the people affected and the Privacy Commissioner, as the law requires.

How long we keep it

Customer and vehicle records are kept while you’re a customer, so we have your car’s history.
Invoices and accounting records are kept for at least seven years, as tax law requires.
WoF inspection records are kept for as long as NZTA Waka Kotahi requires.
CCTV footage is recorded over after a short time, unless it’s needed to look into an incident.
Job applications are kept only as long as needed for that role, unless you ask us to keep yours on file.

We securely delete or anonymise information we no longer need.

Seeing and correcting your information

You have the right to ask for a copy of the information we hold about you, and to ask us to correct it if it’s wrong.

Just email or call us. We’ll reply within 20 working days, and usually much sooner. We don’t charge for this.

You can also ask us to stop sending reminders or other messages at any time.

Questions or concerns

If you have a question or a concern about your privacy, please contact our Privacy Officer:

Coastal Autos
8 Ashley Place, Papamoa Beach, Tauranga 3118
Email: info@coastalautos.nz
Phone: 07 282 7100

If you’re not happy with how we’ve handled it, you can contact the Office of the Privacy Commissioner at privacy.org.nz or on 0800 803 909.

Changes to this policy

We’ll update this policy when the way we handle information changes, and show the new date at the top of this page.