What we do with what you tell us.

If you apply as a community organisation, we collect your organisation's name, legal structure, registration number, location and rough size, the name, role, email and phone number of your main contact, and everything you write in the application itself.

If you apply as a developer, we collect your name, email, where in the district you are based, which seat you are applying for, what you have shipped before, and your CV if you choose to attach one.

Some of what you write may describe personal or sensitive information your organisation handles, for example client records or health information. We ask about it so the build team can plan properly. Please describe the kind of information rather than sending us actual records.

To assess your application against the published criteria, to contact you about it, and to run the programme if you are selected. We do not use it for anything else, and we do not sell it or pass it to anyone outside the programme.

Startup Queenstown Lakes holds this information as lead organisation and fund holder for Community Tech Lab. Their privacy policy (opens in a new tab) covers how they handle personal information generally. This notice covers what is specific to applying to Community Tech Lab, and where the two differ this one is the more detailed.

The selection panel reads every application. The panel is drawn from the six partner organisations and from local technology and community people. Everyone on it is bound by the same confidentiality expectations, and anyone with a conflict of interest steps out of the discussion for that application.

Applications are stored in Google Workspace, which means the information is held on servers in the United States. That country's privacy laws are different to New Zealand's. We use it because it lets the whole panel read and score applications without extra cost to the programme.

Access is limited to the people who need it: the delivery lead, the chair, and the selection panel during the assessment period.

We may use AI tools, including large language models run by other companies, to help us read what is submitted. That means summarising long answers, pulling out particular details, and organising applications so the panel can compare them consistently.

In practice this means the text of your application, and your CV if you attach one, may be sent to one of those providers to be processed. We use them on business terms under which what we send is not used to train their models.

People make the decisions. AI is used to help read and organise, never to score an application, rank it, or decide who is selected. The panel reads every application itself.

This is the other reason we ask you not to paste actual client records or personal information about other people into your answers. Describe the kind of information your organisation handles instead.

Applications from the 2026 round are kept until the end of 2027, so we can report to the funder, answer questions about how decisions were made, and get in touch if a future round might suit you. After that they are deleted.

If you would rather we deleted yours sooner, ask and we will.

Under the Privacy Act 2020 you can ask to see the personal information we hold about you, and ask us to correct it if it is wrong. There is no charge and we will respond within 20 working days.

The programme does not publish an email address, so use the question form on the apply page and say what you are asking for.

If you are not happy with how we handle a request, you can raise it with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner at privacy.org.nz.

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