Privacy Policy

Southern Group Training Trust (“we”, “us”, “our”) is committed to protecting your privacy and ensuring your personal information is handled in a safe, transparent, and respectful manner in accordance with the New Zealand Privacy Act 2020.

Southern Group Training Trust is a non-profit group training organisation based in Invercargill, New Zealand. We employ apprentices and manage their placement with local host companies throughout the Southland region.

We collect personal information directly from you when you interact with our website or submit an inquiry through our contact forms:

• Contact & Identity Information: Your name, email address, and phone number.
• Voluntary Details: Information you voluntarily provide in your message or application, including your education history, age, current study status, or career preferences.
• Technical & Network Data: Basic computer or network details (such as your IP address, browser type, and request headers) automatically processed when loading website assets or submitting forms.

We collect and use your personal information solely for legitimate operational purposes:

• To respond to your inquiries and communicate with you.
• To assess candidate suitability and connect students with apprenticeship and training opportunities in Southland.
• To maintain website security, prevent automated spam submissions, and safely deliver site content.

We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal information to third parties. We only share information with:

• Prospective Host Employers & Training Partners: To evaluate your application and facilitate local apprenticeship placements, but only with your prior consent.
• Website & Infrastructure Providers: We utilise Cloudflare Turnstile and core web infrastructure to verify human visitors, block automated spam, and deliver website content safely.

• Cloudflare Turnstile: We use Cloudflare Turnstile to secure our online forms against bot spam without using tracking cookies. Turnstile evaluates basic request headers and telemetry to confirm you are human.
• Google Fonts: To render typography properly, your web browser loads font assets directly from Google’s servers. This process briefly shares your IP address with Google solely for rendering text on your screen.
• WordPress Cookies: Our public website pages do not track visitors with persistent marketing cookies. Standard temporary cookies are used only if a staff member logs into the WordPress administrative dashboard.

Providing personal information through our website is entirely voluntary. However, if you choose not to provide your name, email address, or phone number in our contact form, we will be unable to respond to your inquiry or assist you with apprenticeship opportunities.

We take all reasonable security steps to protect personal information stored on our website and internal servers from loss, unauthorized access, disclosure, or misuse. Information submitted via contact forms is accessible only by authorized Southern Group Training Trust staff and technical administrators who require access to assist you.

Under Principles 6 and 7 of the New Zealand Privacy Act 2020, you have the right to request a copy of any personal information we hold about you, and to ask that it be corrected if you believe it is inaccurate or out of date.

To request access to your information or ask for a correction, please contact us using the details below.