Privacy Policy

Porchlight ("Porchlight", "we", "us", "our") is appointment-booking software for New Zealand service businesses. Porchlight is run by Webenchant Limited, a New Zealand company. We are committed to protecting personal information and complying with the Privacy Act 2020 and its Information Privacy Principles (IPPs), including IPP 3A on information collected from someone other than you. This policy explains what personal information we collect, why, how we use and disclose it, and the rights you have.

1. Who this policy applies to, and our two roles

Porchlight serves two groups of people, and our responsibilities differ for each:

• Businesses that use Porchlight (account holders and their staff). For your information, Porchlight is the "agency" under the Privacy Act and is responsible for how we handle it.
• Clients of those businesses (people who book appointments). When a business uses Porchlight to take bookings, that business is the agency responsible for its own clients' personal information. Porchlight holds and processes that information on the business's behalf and only as needed to provide the service. If you are a client, please also read the privacy policy of the business you booked with, and direct access or correction requests about your booking to them in the first instance.

2. Information we collect

From businesses and their staff:

• Account and contact details - name, email address, phone number, business name and address, role;
• Login credentials (passwords are stored only as salted hashes) and any two-factor authentication settings;
• Billing information - subscription plan and payment details, which are processed and stored by our payment provider (see section 6); we do not store full card numbers.

From, or about, a business's clients (entered by the business or by clients when booking):

• Name, email address, phone number;
• Appointment history, service preferences, deposits and payment records, and any notes the business records;
• Notes the business records about a client’s treatments. These may include health information (for example an allergy or a skin sensitivity that matters for a beauty or wellness service). Health information is subject to additional protection - see section 9;
• Communication and consent records - whether a client has agreed to receive SMS or email reminders, and the messages sent.

When you contact us through our website:

• Your name, email address, phone number, business name, what you need help with, the booking system you use now, how many staff take bookings, how you heard about us and your message;
• With it, the IP address, country, browser, device and language it was sent from, and how you found our website (see section 12).

Automatically, when you use our website or app:

• Device and usage data such as IP address, browser type, pages viewed and timestamps, from essential cookies and from website analytics (see section 12). We do not use advertising or cross-site tracking cookies.

3. How we collect it (IPP 1-4, including 3A)

We collect personal information directly from you where we can - when you create an account, make a booking, or contact support - and from the business you booked with. We collect only what we need for the purposes in section 4, by lawful and fair means, and we tell you what we are collecting and why at the point of collection.

Some information reaches us from someone other than you: a business adds its clients or its staff, or a person books an appointment for someone else. Where a business collects its clients’ information, the business is responsible for telling those clients (IPP 3A); this policy explains what Porchlight does with it. Where a business adds you as a staff member, this policy is how we tell you, and you can ask us about your information at any time (section 15).

4. Why we use your information

We use personal information to:

• Provide, operate and maintain the Porchlight service and your account;
• Take and manage bookings, deposits and payments, and - where a business has enabled it and the client has been told at booking time - charge no-show or late-cancellation fees under the business's policy;
• Send transactional messages such as booking confirmations, reminders and account notices by email and, where consented, SMS;
• Provide customer support and respond to your enquiries;
• Keep the service secure, prevent fraud and abuse, and meet our legal obligations;
• Improve the service (using aggregated or de-identified data wherever possible).

We do not use client personal information for our own marketing, and we do not sell personal information to anyone.

5. Marketing and reminder messages (consent)

Appointment reminders and confirmations are transactional messages sent on behalf of the business you booked with, based on the consent recorded at booking time. Any marketing or promotional electronic messages are sent only with consent and always include a way to unsubscribe, consistent with the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007. You can opt out of non-essential messages at any time; some transactional messages are necessary to deliver the service.

Porchlight news (our newsletter)

When you sign up to Porchlight news we keep your email address, the words you agreed to, when you signed up and confirmed, the page you signed up on, how you reached our site (for example a search engine or a link), and the country your connection came from.

We also keep the IP address your sign-up and your confirmation came from, as proof that the address owner asked for the newsletter. It is never used for anything else.

We use this only to send you Porchlight news and to show that you asked for it.

Nothing is sent until you confirm from the email we send first. A sign-up nobody confirms is deleted after 30 days.

Your details are kept in our own database. Emails are delivered for us by an email delivery provider, which may store data outside New Zealand.

Every newsletter email has a link to unsubscribe, and it takes effect at once. After you unsubscribe we keep the record of your sign-up and your unsubscribe for 24 months, then delete it.

To see, correct or delete what we hold about you, write to us through our contact page.

Newsletter emails are delivered for us by SendGrid (United States), the same provider that sends our other emails.

6. Who we disclose information to (IPP 11)

We do not sell personal information. We disclose it only:

• To service providers who help us run Porchlight, under contract and only for that purpose, including Vultr (cloud hosting: our servers, database and backups, in Melbourne, Australia), Cloudflare (content delivery, security, file storage, backup copies and privacy-friendly page statistics), Stripe (payment processing, United States), SendGrid (transactional email, United States), TNZ Group (SMS delivery, New Zealand), Sentry (error and crash reporting, United States), Google (Google Analytics: loaded directly on porchlight.co.nz and through Google Tag Manager on the booking pages and the app; section 12 explains when it runs and how to turn it off; United States) and Proton (our email inboxes, Switzerland);
• To the business you booked with, for clients' booking information;
• Where required or authorised by law, or to establish, exercise or defend legal claims, or to protect the safety of any person;
• In connection with a business sale or restructure, in which case the recipient is bound to protect the information consistently with this policy.

7. Sending information overseas (IPP 12)

Most of our service providers store or process information outside New Zealand: our servers are in Melbourne, Australia, and Stripe, SendGrid, Sentry and Google are in the United States, with Cloudflare’s network worldwide. Before disclosing personal information overseas we take reasonable steps to ensure the recipient is required to protect it with safeguards comparable to those under the Privacy Act 2020, or we rely on another basis permitted by IPP 12 (such as your authorisation).

8. Storage and security (IPP 5)

We store information on servers in Melbourne, Australia (Vultr), with backup copies kept by Cloudflare, and protect it with encryption in transit and at rest, access controls, and monitoring. Payment card data is handled by Stripe, a PCI-DSS Level 1 certified provider; Porchlight does not store full card numbers. No system is perfectly secure, but we take reasonable steps to protect personal information against loss, misuse and unauthorised access.

9. Health information

Where a business records health information about a client (for example in its notes), that information is also protected by the Health Information Privacy Code 2020. We treat it as sensitive: it is only accessible to the business that collected it and to Porchlight to the extent needed to provide the service, and it is subject to the security and retention measures in this policy.

10. How long we keep it, and disposal (IPP 9)

We keep personal information only for as long as it is needed for the purposes above or to meet legal, tax or dispute-resolution obligations. When a business closes its account we delete or de-identify its data within a reasonable period, except where we must retain records by law. Crash reports are deleted automatically after 90 days. The record of a message sent through our contact form is deleted automatically after 24 months; the copy that reaches our inbox is kept as email, like any other message we receive. A business can export its client list and booking data at any time (CSV), and clients can ask the business to delete their information.

11. Your right to access and correct (IPP 6 & 7)

You have the right to ask for confirmation of whether we hold personal information about you, to access it, and to request correction of anything inaccurate. To make a request, contact our Privacy Officer (section 15). We will respond as soon as reasonably practicable and within the timeframes the Privacy Act requires (generally 20 working days). There is normally no charge. If you are a client of a business that uses Porchlight, we will usually direct your request to that business, as they are the agency responsible for your booking information.

12. Cookies and analytics

We use Google Analytics 4 to count visits and see which pages people use. On porchlight.co.nz it is loaded directly from Google, with no Tag Manager; on the booking pages at book.porchlight.co.nz and in the app at app.porchlight.co.nz it is loaded through Google Tag Manager. It shows us how the sites are used as a whole: we do not use advertising cookies, and we do not follow you across other websites. Cloudflare Web Analytics, added by our content-delivery provider, also counts page loads and measures how fast pages load; it sets no cookies and does not identify you. The app also sets essential cookies, to keep you logged in and remember your preferences. Invoice, payment and booking-management pages reached from a link, and a booking page embedded in a business's own website, load no analytics at all.

Your choice. On porchlight.co.nz, for visitors in New Zealand, Australia and most other countries, Google Analytics is on when the page loads; a notice at the bottom of the page says so, and "Manage" turns it off at any time. If your browser sends a Global Privacy Control signal, we treat it as a no. Visitors in the European Union, the EEA, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, and anyone whose country we cannot tell, are asked first, and analytics loads only after they accept. On the booking pages and the app, Google Analytics loads only if you accept it in the cookie banner. Your choice is kept in one cookie, pl_cookie_consent, on porchlight.co.nz and its subdomains for 180 days. You can change it at any time with the "Cookie preferences" link in the footer of porchlight.co.nz or the booking pages. If you turn analytics off or decline, it stops. Advertising storage is never enabled, whatever you choose. Cloudflare Web Analytics runs whatever you choose: it sets no cookies and does not identify you.

How you found us. porchlight.co.nz keeps one cookie of its own, ence_src, that records how you first reached us and how you reached us most recently (for example a search engine, an ad, an AI assistant or another website, any campaign tags in the link, and the page you landed on). It stays in your browser for 180 days and is updated as you arrive from a new link. We store what it says only when you send us a message through our contact form, so we can see which pages and campaigns help people find us. It is never sent to Google or anyone else, and it is not used to follow you on other websites. Because it is our own record and goes nowhere, it is set without asking; you can delete it in your browser at any time.

Our mobile apps contain no analytics at all - see section 16.

13. Privacy breaches (Part 6, Privacy Act 2020)

If a privacy breach occurs that is likely to cause serious harm, we will notify the Office of the Privacy Commissioner and affected individuals as soon as practicable, in accordance with the Privacy Act 2020. Where a breach affects a business's client information, we will inform the business so it can meet its own obligations.

14. Children

Porchlight is intended for businesses and their adult clients. Where a booking is made for a minor, it should be made by a parent or guardian. We do not knowingly collect information from children except as part of a booking made by a responsible adult.

15. Contact us, and complaints

Our Privacy Officer is responsible for privacy at Porchlight. If you have a question, want to access or correct your information, or wish to make a complaint, contact us at our privacy address .

If you are not satisfied with our response, you can complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner - the independent regulator under the Privacy Act 2020 - at privacy.org.nz or 0800 803 909.

For help using Porchlight, see our support page.

16. Our mobile apps

This section covers the Porchlight app for clients and the Porchlight Business app for businesses and their staff.

• No analytics or advertising tracking. The apps contain no analytics or advertising software and do not track you across other apps or websites.
• Crash reports. If an app stops working it sends a report to Sentry: device model, operating system version, app version and the technical detail of the error. Reports are not linked to your name or email address.
• No purchases in the app. The apps sell no plans or subscriptions. Where a business takes a deposit for a booking, that payment is processed by Stripe on that business's own Stripe account; we do not store your card details.
• No push notifications are sent by the current versions of the apps. Booking confirmations and reminders come by email, and by text where that was consented to.
• Permissions. The apps ask for no camera, photo or location access, except on the customer app's payment screen, where Stripe may ask for the camera to scan a card and for your location to check a card.
• Stored on your phone: your sign-in token, held in the phone's secure storage. Signing out removes it. On Android, deleting the app removes it too; on iPhone, sign out before you delete the app.
• Deleting your account. A client can delete their account from the Porchlight app. A business owner can delete the business account on the web, at app.porchlight.co.nz/account/settings/delete. Staff accounts are removed by the business that created them. You can also email us (section 15) and we will action it.

17. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. We will post the updated version here with a new "last updated" date and, where changes are significant, notify account holders by email.