Health Information Privacy Policy

1. Purpose and Scope

This policy sets out how SSAANZ collects, stores, shares, and disposes of health information collected from participants for the purpose of running SSAANZ events safely — including hunting, fishing, tramping, Round the Mountain, Southern Traverse, and other outdoor and firearms-related activities.

SSAANZ treats this information to the standard set by the Health Information Privacy Code 2020 (HIPC), which applies specific rules to health information about identifiable people, on top of the general Privacy Act 2020. In practice this means: we only collect what we genuinely need for event safety, we tell participants why we're asking, we keep it secure and share it only with people who need it to run the event safely, and we get rid of it once it's no longer needed.

Scope: This policy covers health information collected at event registration only. It does not apply to general membership sign-up, which does not collect health information (see Section 3). It also does not cover the RV app's wellbeing/crisis-support feature — that is a separate, lower-sensitivity data flow (a tap event, not a health questionnaire) and is addressed in its own addendum (Section 9). The named welfare contact for follow-up is Candice Benfell (welfare.alert@ssaanz.co.nz). A separate, unmonitored list of crisis-support resources is also published on the SSAANZ website's Contact page for anyone who is not a member.

2. What We Collect, and Why

Because several SSAANZ events involve firearms, remote terrain, or physically demanding conditions, we ask every participant the same set of health and suitability questions before each event, regardless of activity type. This lets our event team plan appropriately and respond safely if something happens on the day.

The questions asked are:

• Do you (the participant) have any health problems or limiting physical disabilities or handicaps (temporary or permanent) that we need to be aware of for this event?
• Does the participant have any allergies?
• Reactions to medications?
• Is the participant currently taking any medication that is relevant for SSAANZ to be made aware of?
• Do you have any known phobias that could affect your participation in this event (e.g. acrophobia, aerophobia, social phobia)?
• Do you have any drug or alcohol dependency issues that SSAANZ should be made aware of for the event?

We only ask these questions to plan and run the specific event being registered for — not to build a general health profile of members over time.

3. When We Collect It

This information is collected as part of event registration only, at the point someone signs up for a specific SSAANZ event. General membership sign-up (joining SSAANZ) does not collect health, allergy, medication, phobia, or dependency information. This is a deliberate design choice: health information is only ever collected when it is actually needed to plan a specific event.

4. Who Can See It

Health information collected for an event is shared strictly on a need-to-know basis, limited to the people directly responsible for planning and running that event:

• The National Coordinator
• The administrator handling that event's registration and logistics
• The event Team Leader
• Any other volunteers directly guiding that event on the day

Nobody outside this group sees a participant's health information as a matter of course — it is not visible in general member lists, marketing lists, or to volunteers not assigned to that event. Through the RV app or website, a member can see and manage only their own event registration (and any household/whānau members they have registered) — never another participant's health information.

5. Storage and Security

Health information is held in a restricted-access field or module, separate from general member records and marketing lists, and visible only to the roles named in Section 4. Role-based technical access controls enforce this restriction across all SSAANZ digital systems.

6. Retention and Deletion (Automated Shredding)

Health information collected for an event is deleted once that event is completed. It is not retained for future reference, and it is not carried over or shown as a starting point ("pre-filled") when the same participant registers for a later event — each event's health and suitability questions are asked fresh, from a blank form, every time.

Deletion is triggered automatically by whichever happens first:

• Cancellation or Refund: If a registration is cancelled or refunded, that registration's health information is permanently shredded immediately.
• Event Conclusion: Once an event's end date passes, health information for all remaining registrations for that event is automatically shredded via nightly database jobs.

7. What We Don't Do With It

• We don't use it for marketing, fundraising, or membership communications.
• We don't share it with sponsors, partners, or funders.
• We don't disclose it outside SSAANZ without the participant's consent, except where required by law.
• We don't keep it after the event, or reuse it for later events.

8. Participant Rights

Participants can ask to see the health information SSAANZ holds about them, and can ask for it to be corrected if it's wrong. Requests should be directed to David Benfell, SSAANZ's Privacy Officer, via info@ssaanz.co.nz.

9. RV App — Wellbeing/Crisis-Support Addendum

When a logged-in member taps the crisis-support call option in the RV app, the app privately logs that a tap occurred and sends an alert to SSAANZ's named welfare contact (Candice Benfell, welfare.alert@ssaanz.co.nz) so they can follow up the next day. No health information, reason for the tap, or call content is captured — only that a tap took place. Alert emails are deleted within 24 hours of being sent.

10. Review

This policy is reviewed annually alongside the Safety Management Plan by the SSAANZ Board of Trustees.