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Outdoor Next, operated by an individual sole trader based in New Zealand, is responsible for the personal information described here. The Privacy Officer handles privacy questions, access requests, corrections and complaints.
Contact email: hello@outdoornext.co.nz
Privacy requests: privacy@outdoornext.co.nz
Postal address available on request — email privacy@outdoornext.co.nz
This policy explains our handling of personal information under New Zealand's Privacy Act 2020, including information privacy principles 1 to 13 and the indirect collection notice requirement in IPP3A.
1. Purpose of collection
We collect information needed to run accounts, save your plans, deliver authentication messages, review community submissions, respond to reports, prevent misuse and understand how public guides perform. Information we collect depends on the features you use:
- Member accounts: email address, display name, password hashes, verification status, account identifiers and dates. Optional profile fields include a handle, biography, hometown, image and sharing preferences.
- Member activity: saved places and notes, trip stops, journals, reviews, visit dates, ratings, corrections, photographs and captions, photo rights confirmations, sharing choices, points and kudos.
- Security and moderation: session tokens and expiry, IP address and user agent for sessions, bounded abuse counters, hashed reporter identifiers, report details and moderation decisions.
- Public browsing: when analytics runs, Google Analytics 4 (GA4) receives browsing and device information such as pages, referrers, browser identifiers and events, including outbound link, packing list and shortlist actions. The regional consent controls are explained below. Vercel receives web requests and operational logs and supplies an IP-based country code for the regional consent controls. Selected public pages use Vercel Speed Insights for performance measurements; its event URLs have query strings and fragments removed.
- Separate shop accounts: registration and sign-in forms collect an email address, password and optional name. Existing customer and order records can contain delivery addresses, phone numbers, order details and payment references. These are separate from outdoor membership.
Optional nearby results: choosing "Use my location" asks your browser for permission to read your location. Coordinates and accuracy are used in page memory for nearby distances, not persistently stored or added to links; leaving or reloading clears them. You can decline, clear the location or choose a town instead. Opening a map requests OpenStreetMap tiles for the visible area.
The shop is closed to new orders. Its payment integration uses Stripe; existing payment and refund records may remain. Card details entered into Stripe Checkout are handled by Stripe, rather than stored in our account database. Closing the shop does not erase past order records.
Current forms cover accounts, member settings, saved places, community submissions and reports. The contact page has no message form, and newsletter collection is not implemented in this version. If an opt-in subscription is introduced, its notice must explain the purpose and unsubscribe process before collection starts.
2. Sources of information
We usually collect information directly from you through forms, uploads, email correspondence and your use of the site. Another person may include information about you in a community submission or report. Collecting from someone else needs a basis permitted by the Act; publicly available information is not permission for unrestricted reuse.
Indirect collection notices (IPP3A)
IPP3A applies from 1 May 2026. When we collect personal information from another source, we must take reasonable steps to tell you about the collection, its purpose, recipients, the name and address of the collecting and holding agencies, any law authorising or requiring it, and your access and correction rights, unless a legal exception applies. That notice is due as soon as reasonably practicable after collection unless already provided. Historical business records can include buyer details received from Trade Me for order fulfilment, support and record keeping. We must assess the notice obligation for each indirect collection; a public policy alone does not establish that an individual was notified.
3. What we tell you when collecting information
Outdoor Next is the collecting and holding agency. Our operator, contact details and Privacy Officer are identified above; service recipients are listed below. You can browse public guides without an account. You are not required by law to register or submit content. Giving us information is voluntary, but an email address, display name and password are needed for member registration. Without them we cannot create or secure your account. Optional profile fields and public sharing are your choice. Submission forms need the content and rights confirmations relevant to that submission. We cannot investigate a report or privacy request without enough details to identify the issue; access to personal records may also need identity verification. Your access and correction rights are explained in sections 6 and 7.
Collection notices must be available before collection or, if that is not practicable, as soon as practicable afterwards. If a new collection is authorised or required by law, its notice must identify that law, whether supplying the information is mandatory, and the consequences of not supplying it.
4. Fair and lawful collection
We collect only what a lawful site function needs, openly, fairly and without unreasonable intrusion or pressure. We take particular care with children and young people and the sensitivity of their information. We do not automatically collect your precise position or background travel history. A place or visit date you add yourself can still reveal your movements. Please avoid sharing sensitive details about yourself or other people, and obtain permission before uploading photographs of identifiable people, especially children.
5. Storage and security
Accounts and member content, including processed photographs, are held in the site database. Passwords are stored as hashes. Access controls, secure session cookies, request checks and rate limits help protect accounts; authorised moderators review submitted content and reports. No online service can guarantee complete security.
Services that receive or hold information
- Vercel hosts the website and server functions, handles requests and logs, and provides Speed Insights on selected public pages.
- Turso hosts the production libSQL database for accounts, member records, processed photographs and business records when the production Turso connection is configured. Local development uses SQLite. Prisma and Better Auth are software used by the site, rather than separate hosted account services in this implementation.
- Resend sends verification and password reset messages, receiving the recipient address and message including the authentication link. The configured sending region is Tokyo, Japan (ap-northeast-1). This sending region does not establish where every log, backup or subprocessor operates. Authentication email open and click tracking are recorded as disabled in the service setup.
- Google provides GA4 for public browsing analytics. Its initial loading and our custom-event tracking exclude member, community, account, login, cart, checkout and API paths, including their language-prefixed versions. This does not guarantee that an already loaded Google tag stops automatic measurement during browser-side navigation. Custom event parameters are limited to approved categories, boolean choices and outbound domains. That filter does not sanitise GA4's automatic page URLs and referrers, which can contain query strings; avoid putting personal information in public URLs.
- OpenStreetMap tile servers receive your IP address, browser request details and the tile requests identifying the visible map area when you open a map. Browser permission for nearby results does not make those map requests private.
- Stripe handles historical shop payments, refunds and payment status notifications and may retain earlier transaction records for payment, refund and legal purposes. It is not used to pay for outdoor membership.
These services can process information outside New Zealand. Their full processing and backup locations have not been independently verified for this policy; Resend's sending region alone does not identify all processing locations. We cannot promise that all information stays in New Zealand. Ask the Privacy Officer about a particular provider or transfer; section 12 explains the safeguards we must assess.
Privacy breaches
If information is lost, accessed or shared improperly, our response must contain the incident, assess the information and people affected, consider the risk of serious harm and record remedial steps. Where a breach has caused or is likely to cause serious harm, we must notify the Privacy Commissioner and affected people as soon as practicable, subject to the Act's exceptions. The Privacy Officer is responsible for coordinating that response.
6. Access to your information
You can ask the Privacy Officer whether we hold information about you and request access. Member settings also provide a record export and individual photo downloads; an export may not include every separate security or moderation record. We may need proportionate evidence of identity before releasing information. We must respond as soon as reasonably practicable and normally decide an access request within 20 working days. If the Act allows an extension or refusal, we will explain it and your complaint rights. When providing access, we will also explain your right to request a correction.
7. Correcting your information
You can update profile fields in member settings or ask the Privacy Officer to correct information that is wrong, incomplete or misleading. We normally decide correction requests within 20 working days, with any lawful extension explained. If we do not make the correction, you can ask us to attach a statement of correction so it is read with the record. Where reasonably practicable, corrections or attached statements must also reach people to whom the information was disclosed.
8. Accuracy before use
Before using or disclosing personal information, we must take reasonable steps to check it is accurate, current, relevant, complete and not misleading for that purpose. Please keep your account details up to date. A community opinion or old visit record is not a verified current fact.
9. Retention and deletion
We keep personal information only as long as a lawful purpose requires. Our retention schedule is:
- Member personal profiles and associated personal content: delete within 30 days after account closure. Member settings offer permanent account deletion, which removes the account and related records from the active database rather than waiting 30 days. The 30-day deadline is a maximum for profile deletion, not a claim that provider backups have a verified 30-day expiry.
- GA4 user and event data: our retention period is 14 months, subject to Google's monthly deletion cycle. This setting does not apply to standard aggregated reports or control cookie lifetimes. The live property setting and reset-on-activity option have not been independently verified for this policy.
- Any future subscription list: remove the subscriber's personal details immediately on unsubscribe and stop marketing messages. Membership alone is not a newsletter subscription.
- Complaint and privacy request correspondence: retain for 2 years after the matter is closed to handle follow-up and demonstrate how the request or complaint was resolved, then securely delete or anonymise it unless a specific legal preservation duty applies.
- Authentication delivery logs, operational and security logs, moderation records and provider backups have separate operational lifecycles; fixed expiry periods have not been verified for this policy. We must review their necessity and securely delete or anonymise personal information when it is no longer needed. Historical order, payment and tax records are separate from membership and may need retention to meet legal obligations or resolve outstanding orders.
Account deletion does not remove separate shop records or copies of public or unlisted material that another person has already saved. Any lawful preservation for an access request or dispute must be considered before deletion. Ask the Privacy Officer about retained records.
10. Limits on use
We use personal information for the purposes explained when collecting it, a directly related purpose, or another use allowed by the Act. A new unrelated purpose needs your authorisation or another lawful basis. Verification and password reset messages are account messages; they do not sign you up for marketing.
11. Limits on disclosure
Information goes to the services above as needed to run the features you use. Private records do not enter the public publication queue. Public submissions may show your display name after review. An unlisted link can be viewed and forwarded by anyone who receives it; it is not restricted to named recipients. Authorised moderators can inspect submissions and reports. Other disclosure needs your authority or a basis allowed by law, such as a qualifying safety or law enforcement need. We do not sell member profiles or private journals to advertisers.
12. Overseas processing and disclosure
Under IPP12, an overseas recipient of a disclosure generally needs comparable safeguards, for example through applicable privacy law or an enforceable agreement. If relying on your authorisation instead, we must expressly explain that comparable protections may be absent before seeking that authorisation. Using this site alone is not that permission.
Sending information to an overseas agent solely to store or process it for us is generally not a disclosure under IPP12 if the agent does not use or disclose it for its own purposes. We remain responsible for reasonable safeguards. We must check each provider's actual role, terms, subprocessors and any independent uses, rather than assume all cloud or analytics services qualify as agents. Processing for a provider's own purposes needs a separate disclosure assessment. We have not independently verified every provider's contract and transfer safeguards for this policy; listing a provider here does not certify compliance. You can ask the Privacy Officer what safeguards apply to a specific transfer.
13. Unique identifiers
The site uses its own account and record identifiers to connect your saved content and manage access. We assign identifiers only where needed, verify identity appropriately and guard against misuse. We do not adopt another agency's identifier as our own member identifier or require an unrelated identifier to use membership. We do not ask for passport, driver licence or tax numbers to create an outdoor member account, or reuse those numbers as member identifiers.
Cookies, browser storage and consent
Authentication cookies use the outdoor-next-member prefix. The on_member_hint cookie helps the interface recognise a signed-in member; customer_session supports the separate shop account. The outdoor-next-language cookie stores your language choice. Anonymous shortlists use browser local storage until you clear or import them; imported saves are then held in your member account. Blocking necessary cookies may prevent sign-in or saved preferences from working.
The outdoor_next_analytics_consent_v1 cookie records accepted or declined for 6 calendar months from your choice. It is separate from GA4 cookies such as _ga and _ga_<container-id>, whose Google default expiry is 2 years, subject to browser limits and property settings. The consent cookie lifetime, GA4 cookie lifetime and 14-month event-data retention period are different controls; the live GA4 cookie overrides have not been independently verified.
A minimal banner is shown only when the hosting service identifies your country as within the European Economic Area (EEA), United Kingdom (UK) or Switzerland (CH), including the territories covered by that regional setting. For those identified visitors, GA4 uses strict consent mode: consent defaults to denied, the Google tag is not downloaded and no analytics requests are sent until you accept. Choosing reject is as easy as choosing accept. Advertising consent remains denied even after accepting analytics; this version loads no advertising or affiliate tracking scripts.
On public pages in those identified countries, use "Cookie settings" near the footer to withdraw consent and reopen the banner. Withdrawal blocks subsequent analytics but cannot unload a script already downloaded or erase earlier data; the next full page load does not start GA4 without a new acceptance. If your country is unknown or outside those regions, the existing analytics behaviour continues without that banner or settings button. Google's regional denied defaults still apply, but an unknown country does not receive the same strict script-loading gate. You can block or clear cookies through your browser and use Google's analytics controls. Clearing cookies alone does not delete information already received by a service.
Privacy complaints
Start by writing to the Privacy Officer at privacy@outdoornext.co.nz and keep a copy. Explain what happened and the outcome you seek. If the issue remains unresolved, follow the Office of the Privacy Commissioner's complaint process, including its online assessment and evidence requirements. The Commissioner generally expects you to first try resolving the issue with the agency concerned.
Sources and policy changes
Legal guidance checked on : the Privacy Act principles, OPC's free Privacy Statement Generator (Priv-o-matic), indirect collection notices, IPP12 overseas disclosure guidance, privacy breach guidance and Google's data retention guidance and GA4 cookie guidance. The OPC tool is a checklist and starting point, not an approval of our policy or operations. We will review this policy when services or collection purposes change. Also see our terms of use and commercial disclosure.