Privacy Policy

Effective.AI is a New Zealand registered sole trader business (NZBN 9429053941343) operated by Tony Xia, Hamilton, New Zealand. Privacy contact: privacy@effective-ai.xyz

This policy explains how we handle personal information under the Privacy Act 2020 (NZ). It covers this website, enquiries you send us, business contacts we reach out to, and information we handle while providing services to our clients. In this policy, “we”, “us” and “our” mean Effective.AI.

What we collect

Information you give us. When you submit an enquiry form, we collect your name, email address, phone number (optional), business name, and what you need help with. Depending on the form, we also collect your website address, industry, team size, location, your answers to the screening questions, and any message you add. We also collect whatever you include when you email, call, or message us, and the business and contact details our clients give us when we work with them.

Information collected automatically. When you visit this website, our hosting provider records standard technical information, such as your IP address, browser type, and the pages requested, to deliver the site and keep it secure. We also use cookieless analytics and a bot-protection check, described below.

Information from other sources. We sometimes collect business contact information from sources other than you, such as business websites, public directories, professional networking profiles, and business data providers. We collect only information about your business role: your name, job title, business email and phone number, and details about your business. We do this to identify businesses that may benefit from our services, and when we research prospects for a client. We do not collect sensitive information (such as health, ethnicity, or financial account details) from these sources.

How we use it

• To assess whether our services are a good fit for your business and to reply to you.
• To provide, manage, and invoice our services.
• To contact businesses about services that are relevant to them.
• To keep this website and our systems secure and working.
• To meet our legal, tax, and record-keeping obligations.

We use AI tools to help with some of this work, for example to summarise an enquiry or to research a business. A person reviews the results. We do not make decisions that have a legal or similarly significant effect on you by automated means alone.

Giving us information is voluntary. If you choose not to submit the enquiry form, we will not be able to assess your enquiry or contact you about it.

If we contact you about our services

If we email you without you contacting us first, we obtained your business contact details from one of the sources listed above. Every email we send identifies us and includes a way to opt out. If you ask us to stop, we will stop, and we will keep only the minimum record needed to make sure you are not contacted again. You can also ask us where we got your details, and ask to see, correct, or delete them.

Information we handle for our clients

When we provide services to a client, we may handle personal information on that client's behalf. Examples are the client's customer records, advertising account data, content, and prospect lists we research for them. We handle that information only to deliver the services, under our agreement with the client. The client remains responsible for it, including for how it uses any contacts we supply and for its own marketing messages. If your information was provided to us by one of our clients, please contact that client first. We will help them respond to your request.

Who receives your information

We do not sell or rent personal information. We share it only with the service providers we use to run our business, who process it on our behalf:

• Supabase: database for enquiry form submissions. Data is stored in Sydney, Australia (AWS ap-southeast-2).
• Resend: sends us an email notification with the details of each enquiry form submission. Located in the United States.
• Vercel: website hosting and serverless functions, including servers in the United States.
• Cloudflare: bot protection on the enquiry form (see “Bot protection” below). Operates globally, including in the United States.
• Google: business email and documents (Google Workspace), and the Google Ads API when we manage advertising for clients.
• Meta: Meta Ads Manager and related Meta tools when we manage Facebook and Instagram advertising for clients. Located mainly in the United States and Ireland.
• AI service providers (for example, Anthropic): AI tools we use to process and draft work, located mainly in the United States.
• Business data providers: services we use to find and verify business contact details.

We may also disclose information to our professional advisers, where the law requires it, or to protect our legal rights. If our business is transferred to a company or a new owner, your information may be transferred to that successor. The successor will be bound by this policy.

Cross-border data transfers

Some of the providers above store or process information outside New Zealand, mainly in Australia, the United States, and Ireland. They act on our behalf and do not use your information for their own purposes. We choose providers that protect personal information in ways comparable to the Privacy Act 2020, under their data processing terms.

Cookies and similar technologies

We do not use advertising cookies, tracking pixels, or cross-site tracking. This website uses only the following:

• Analytics: Vercel Analytics, which is cookieless. It does not set cookies, does not collect information that identifies you, and does not track you across other websites. Visits are counted using a hash that is discarded every 24 hours.
• Bot protection: Cloudflare Turnstile on the enquiry form (see below). It may store a short-lived token in your browser, used only for security.
• Site administration: a sign-in cookie and browser storage used only by our own staff when editing the website. Visitors never receive it.

These are all strictly necessary or privacy-preserving, so we do not show a cookie consent banner. You can block or clear cookies in your browser settings. If you block the bot-protection check, the enquiry form may not submit. In that case, email us instead.

Bot protection

The enquiry form uses Cloudflare Turnstile to confirm submissions come from a person and not an automated script. When the check runs, Cloudflare processes technical information from your browser, such as your IP address, browser and device characteristics, and interaction signals, to score whether the request is likely automated. This is used only to protect the form from abuse. It does not build an advertising profile and is not used to track you across other websites.

How we protect your information

We use encrypted connections (HTTPS), restricted access to our database and accounts, and providers with established security programmes. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, so please do not send sensitive information (such as passwords, financial account details, or health information) through the enquiry form or by email. If we have a privacy breach that is likely to cause serious harm, we will notify the Office of the Privacy Commissioner and the people affected, as the Privacy Act 2020 requires.

How long we keep your information

• Enquiries and prospect information: up to 12 months from our last contact with you, unless you become a client.
• Client records: 7 years, to meet New Zealand tax and business record-keeping obligations.
• Opt-out records: for as long as needed to honour your request not to be contacted.
• Technical and security logs: for the periods set by our hosting and security providers.

When we no longer need information, we delete it or make it anonymous.

Your rights

Under the Privacy Act 2020, you have the right to access the personal information we hold about you and to ask us to correct it. You can also ask us to delete it, subject to our legal retention obligations. Contact us at privacy@effective-ai.xyz to make a request. We may need to confirm your identity first. We will respond within 20 working days and do not usually charge for this.

If you are not satisfied with our response, you can complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner at privacy.org.nz.

Children

Our website and services are intended for businesses and are not directed at children under 16. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. The current version is always published on this page, with the date it was last updated.

Contact

Tony Xia, Privacy Officer
Effective.AI (NZBN 9429053941343), Hamilton, New Zealand
privacy@effective-ai.xyz

This policy is governed by the Privacy Act 2020 (New Zealand).