Privacy Policy · Emerge

1. The short version

Enough to run your business and take payments safely, shared only with the people who make that happen.

We collect what we need to verify your business, take payments, pay you out, send receipts and keep fraud out.
We share it with Stripe (cards), your customers’ banks (Pay by Bank), and the providers that send our email and text messages. Never with advertisers.
We keep it in Australia (AWS Sydney), with some of it processed overseas by Stripe under contracts that protect it.
Financial records stay for seven years, because the law says so. Most other things go sooner.
You can see, correct or ask us to delete your information by emailing hello@emerge.nz.

2. What we collect

Business and identity details from you. Payment details from your customers. Device and usage data from the app.

About you and your business: Legal and trading names, NZBN and IRD number, addresses, business category, website, bank account for payouts, and your logo and branding. For each owner and director: name, date of birth, home address, mobile, email, ownership share, and identity documents where Stripe needs them.
About your team: Name, mobile and email for each person you invite, the role you give them, their login devices, and a log of what they do in the app.
About your customers: Whatever you record: name, email, mobile, notes, and their purchase history with you. For a card payment we see the amount, the card type and the last four digits; the card number itself never touches us. For a Pay by Bank payment we see the bank chosen, the mobile number the customer gives their bank, the payment status, and a masked ending of the paying account. If a refund is due, the bank releases the paying account’s name and number so the business can pay it back. For a ticket or free registration: the name, email and (for a paid ticket) mobile given, and when it was checked in and by whom.
From the app itself: IP address, device identifiers, the app version, when you signed in, and error logs. If the app crashes, Google Firebase Crashlytics receives a crash report: the device model, operating system and app version, and where in the app it failed. We do not use advertising trackers or third-party analytics.
Location and camera: Tap to Pay, on iPhone and Android, uses your device’s location. Stripe needs it to accept the payment and check it for fraud. Your device asks your permission first, and we use location for nothing else. The barcode scanner reads codes with the camera and keeps no pictures.

Bank logins never reach us. Pay by Bank is approved inside the customer’s own bank, and we do not ask for balances or transaction history.

Most of what we hold about a business comes from the business itself. Some comes from Stripe (verification results), from banks (payment status), and from the businesses our customers pay. You can choose not to give us something, but without identity and business details we cannot open an account, and without a mobile number a customer cannot pay by bank.

3. Why we use it

To run the service, meet our legal duties, and keep everyone safe.

To set up and run your account, take payments and pay you out.
To verify your identity and business, and to meet anti-money-laundering and financial-crime obligations, with Stripe.
To spot and stop fraud, on your account and your customers’ payments.
To send receipts, tickets, pay links, invoices and the messages you ask us to send to your customers.
To support you when you get in touch.
To keep the records the law requires of a payments provider and an accredited requestor.
To improve EmergePOS, using aggregated information that does not identify anyone.

We do not use your information, or your customers’, for advertising, and we never sell it.

4. Who we share it with

The providers that make a payment happen, and no one else unless the law requires it.

Stripe: Processes card payments and verifies businesses. When you provide personal data in connection with Emerge, Stripe receives that personal data and processes it in accordance with Stripe’s Privacy Policy. Stripe holds it in the United States, Ireland and India, under privacy laws and contracts that protect it to a standard comparable to ours.
Your customers’ banks: For Pay by Bank, the customer’s bank receives the payee name and account, the amount, the reference, your business name and category, and the mobile number the customer enters.
Email and text providers: Resend delivers receipts, tickets, pay links and invoices (email content is processed in Japan). Modica, in New Zealand, sends sign-in codes by text. Apple and Google deliver push notifications to your phone.
Apple Wallet and Google Wallet: If a customer adds a pass to their phone’s wallet, Apple or Google holds what it shows. A pack shows the business, the customer’s first name, balance, visits and bookings. A ticket (Apple only) shows the holder’s name, event, time, place, type and when it was used. Apple Wallet keeps passes on the device, and in iCloud if the customer uses it. Google Wallet stores them on Google’s servers, which may be outside New Zealand. To update an Apple pass, including a lock-screen reminder before an event, we keep the phone’s Wallet identifier and push token until the pass is removed.
Amazon Web Services: Hosts EmergePOS and stores its data in Sydney, Australia, on our instructions and for no purpose of its own.
Regulators and the law: The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, the Financial Markets Authority, banks under open banking rules, the Police, or a court, where the law requires or allows it.
Our advisers: Lawyers, accountants and auditors, under confidentiality.

Some providers process information outside New Zealand. Where we disclose personal information overseas, we make sure the recipient is covered by privacy protections comparable to New Zealand’s, including through contractual safeguards where needed.

5. How long we keep it

Seven years for money records. Five years for bank payment authorisations. Less for everything else.

Payment, payout, refund and dispute records: seven years, as tax and financial-services law require.
Pay by Bank requests and authorisations: five years from the request, as the Customer and Product Data Act requires.
Sign-in, device and security logs: 24 months.
Your customers’ details: for as long as your account is open. After it closes, we keep only the transaction records the law requires, and you or your customers can ask us to remove what identifies a person from them.
Application logs: 90 days.

When we no longer need something, or when someone asks, we delete it or strip out what identifies the person, so the record stays but the person is no longer in it.

6. How we keep it safe

Encrypted, access-controlled, and never in an email or a log.

Everything is encrypted in transit and at rest.
Passcodes are stored only as one-way hashes. Sign-in uses one-time codes, passkeys and Face ID, and a lost device can be signed out remotely. Face ID is checked on your phone. Your face never reaches us.
Our staff can see your information only when their job needs it. Every sensitive action they take is recorded.
Mobile numbers, bank accounts and bank tokens are never written to logs.
Our connections to banks use certificates issued for open banking, and no business ever holds a key to any bank’s systems.

If a privacy breach is likely to cause someone serious harm, we will tell the Office of the Privacy Commissioner and the people affected as soon as we can.

7. Your rights

See it, fix it, delete it, or say no. Free, and usually within 20 working days.

You can ask for a copy of the personal information we hold about you, and we will give it to you within 20 working days.
If something is wrong, you can ask us to correct it. If we disagree, we will note your request on the record.
You can ask us to delete your information. We will, except for the records the law requires us to keep. Those we strip of anything that identifies you.
You can withdraw a consent you gave us, such as marketing, at any time.
You can ask us any of this in the app, or by emailing hello@emerge.nz. We may need to check it is you first.

8. If you are a customer of a business that uses Emerge

The business you paid is responsible for your information. We hold it for them, and we will help.

The business you paid is responsible for the information it collects about you for its own business, such as your name, contact details and purchase history. We hold that for them. We are responsible for the information we collect or use for our own payment, fraud-prevention, legal and open banking duties, such as the record of a bank payment we requested. For a copy, a correction or a deletion of what the business holds, contact the business first. If you cannot reach them, or the question is about how Emerge itself handles your information, contact us and we will help.

If you paid by bank, your bank also holds a record of the payment and of the authorisation you gave. Your bank can show you that, and you can raise any concern about the payment with them or with us. An authorisation for a single payment ends the moment the payment is made. If you ever hold an ongoing authorisation with us, you can end it at any time in the app, by email, or with your bank, and it stops immediately.

If a business sends you marketing through Emerge, every message carries an unsubscribe link, and we honour it for every business you have told to stop.

9. Cookies

One cookie, to keep you signed in. No tracking.

EmergePOS sets a single encrypted cookie to keep you signed in, and stores a few preferences on your device, such as your theme. Our payment pages set no cookies at all. We do not use advertising or analytics cookies.

10. Questions, complaints and changes

Ask us first. The Privacy Commissioner is there if you are not satisfied.

Our privacy officer can be reached at hello@emerge.nz or by post at Level 9, 110 Symonds Street, Grafton, Auckland 1010, New Zealand. We will acknowledge a complaint within two working days and aim to resolve it within ten.

If you are not satisfied with our response, you can complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner: 0800 803 909, enquiries@privacy.org.nz, or privacy.org.nz.

When we change this policy we will update the date at the top, and tell you in the app if the change affects you. The current version is always at pos.emerge.nz/privacy.