Introduction
Welcome to the identity verification service provided by the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA, we, our, us). These terms of use set out the commitments we make to people who use the service (you, your, user). They also set out what we require of you when you use the service. Our requirements are driven by a need to keep you and others safe and secure when using your verified identity.
You will be asked to agree to these terms of use when applying for a verified identity. Please read and understand them. If you choose to continue with your application and accept these terms, the terms of use will form an agreement between you and DIA for the use of your verified identity.
These terms of use and your use of your verified identity are governed by New Zealand law. In particular, the Electronic Identity Verification Act 2012 (the Act) governs the use of the service (referred to in the Act as the “Service” and the “Electronic Identity Verification Service”) and verified identities (referred to in the Act as “electronic identity credentials”). The Act also applies to:
- any verified identity (other than one that had expired or been cancelled) that was issued before the date the Act came into effect; and
- any application for a verified identity that was made, but not granted, refused or withdrawn before that date.
These terms of use address or refer to the following matters below:
- use of your verified identity
- our commitments to you
- your commitments to us
- our retrieval of personal information when you apply for a verified identity
- amendment, cancellation, suspension or revocation of a verified identity
- disputes
- miscellaneous provisions
- amendments to terms of use and privacy statement
Use of your verified identity
Any individual may apply for a verified identity to use via the RealMe service. If you are under 14 years of age, you need one of your parents or legal guardians to approve your application for a verified identity.
You may only use a verified identity if it has been issued to you. As a parent or guardian of a child, you must not use your child’s verified identity for any purpose. Under the Act, it is an offence to use anyone else’s verified identity.
Your verified identity will remain current for the period set by law (the expiry date is shown in your online RealMe account).
Please note that issuing you a verified identity does not entitle you to receive any particular service. Eligibility for services is a matter for the relevant participating service provider. The role of your verified identity is limited to verifying your identity online to such service providers.
Our commitments to you
We will use all reasonable care and skill
We will use all reasonable care and skill to:
- provide the identity verification service;
- keep secure from unauthorised access all user information stored on the service;
- ensure that the service is reasonably fit for the purposes described on this website; and
- ensure that any information on this website is up-to-date and correct.
While we accept that DIA might be liable for some direct loss or damage you incur through our not exercising the reasonable care and skill referred to above, subject to any terms imposed by law which cannot be excluded, DIA will not be liable on any basis (including negligence) for any indirect or consequential loss or for any loss of profit, opportunity, income or savings you incur in connection with your use of your verified identity.
If you use any DIA appointed provider to apply for a verified identity (including getting your photo taken at participating photo stores) that provider and its affiliates, directors, officers and personnel (released parties) will not be liable on any basis (including negligence) for any indirect or consequential loss or for any loss of profit, opportunity, income or savings you incur in connection with your use of your verified identity. You agree that the released parties are third party beneficiaries of these terms of use and that each released party has the right to enforce these terms of use against you.
We will help you
We will help you in your use of your verified identity. We provide the RealMe Help Desk to do so.
Our personnel may access your account information in order to help you. They may also ask you for your RealMe username or details about your application or verified identity to help you. If our personnel are not provided with such information, they may not be able to help you. Please note, however, that our personnel will never ask you for your password or PIN and you should not give that information to them.
Your commitments to us
The purpose of your commitments to us, set out below, is to protect the integrity and security of your verified identity. Please appreciate that, if you do not honour your commitments, third parties may be able to undertake actions apparently on your behalf that may cause loss to you or other people and for which those other people may try to hold you responsible.
You agree that you will:
- not knowingly or recklessly use or attempt to use any verified identity for a purpose for which it was not intended, including any unlawful purpose; and
- notify the RealMe Help Desk immediately if you know or have reason to believe that there has been or is about to be fraudulent or other unlawful use of your verified identity.
- not submit any filtered, edited, manipulated or interfered with images or video footage. This includes video feed that is intercepted and/or manipulated by third party software e.g. background removal, airbrush filters.
Under the Act, it is an offence to use a verified identity that has been issued to another person.
Our retrieval of personal information when you apply for a verified identity
Details relating to the collection, storage and use of your personal information are set out in the identity verification service privacy statement. By applying for a verified identity and agreeing to these terms of use, you will be taken to have read and agreed to the terms of that privacy statement. As such, please ensure you have read and are comfortable with it before agreeing to these terms of use.
There are instances in which we retrieve or may retrieve personal information relating to you which was obtained or generated by DIA or other agencies on earlier occasions:
- In processing your application for a verified identity, we need to retrieve personal information relating to you from DIA's passports, and/or citizenship databases and/or registers of births, deaths, marriages, civil unions and name changes, and/or the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s immigration databases, for the purpose of verifying your identity. That personal information may include your first, middle and last names, details of name changes, date of birth, place of birth, gender, photograph, and your existing passport or citizenship unique identifier, immigration client identity number or birth registration number.
- We may also retrieve further immigration information from the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment's immigration databases, such as any alerts or warnings, to check if they relate to your identity.
- If you supply a Hospitality New Zealand 18+ card, Firearms Licence or Driver Licence to support your application for a verified identity we will confirm your details against records held by Hospitality New Zealand, the New Zealand Police or the New Zealand Transport Agency respectively. In these cases, those agencies will advise us only whether the details you have provided are consistent or not consistent with the information they hold. They may also advise us about the status of the recorded information they hold (for example, that a licence issued to you has expired).
- We also check whether you have already applied for a verified identity and, if so, whether a verified identity has already been issued to you.
- We may obtain information, at any time, from DIA’s registers of births, deaths, marriages, civil unions and name changes to ascertain whether changes are required to the personal details in your verified identity or whether you are recorded as having died.
- Where you have given contact details to the RealMe login service, we may retrieve those details for the purpose of communicating with you (whether in relation to the application process of subsequently).
When creating your verified identity, we store your name, gender, date of birth and place of birth. When you use the RealMe service to verify your identity with a participating service provider, it is some or all of these attributes that, with your consent, are released to that service provider.
In applying for a verified identity and accepting these terms of use, you will be taken to have consented to our retrieval and use of such personal information for the purposes stated above.
Amendment, cancellation, suspension or revocation of a verified identity
The Electronic Identity Verification Act sets out the grounds upon which your verified identity may be amended, cancelled, suspended or revoked. In essence, the grounds relate to changes or errors in core identity information, death of a person to whom a verified identity has been issued, change of identity, investigation into or reasonable grounds to believe a person has committed a specified offence, or issuance of a verified identity in error or on the basis of any false or fraudulent representation or declaration.
If you wish to review these grounds and associated processes, please read sections 32-36 of the Act.
Disputes
If you have a dispute with us in connection with these terms of use or your verified identity, you must first contact the RealMe Help Desk. Both you and the RealMe Help Desk will use all reasonable efforts in good faith to resolve the dispute. If you and the RealMe Help Desk are unable to resolve the dispute to your satisfaction, you may ask the RealMe Help Desk to escalate the dispute to the appropriate DIA representative.
We will then promptly contact you and will endeavour to resolve the dispute with you. If, following such escalation, the dispute is still not resolved to your satisfaction you may take such legal action as you consider appropriate, such as making a complaint to the Ombudsmen or commencing legal proceedings.
Miscellaneous provisions
Invalidity or unenforceability
If any of these terms of use or their application to any person or circumstances is, to any extent, held to be invalid or unenforceable:
- the remainder of these terms of use or the application of such terms of use to any other person or circumstances shall not be affected;
- each term shall be valid and enforceable to the extent permitted by law; and
- the invalid or unenforceable term will be deemed to be amended to reflect, as nearly as possible, the original intention (as determined from this website).
Minors' Contracts Act 1969
If, under the Part 2, Subpart 6 of the Contract and Commercial Law Act 2017, any of these terms of use is held not to be fair and reasonable, then that term or condition will be deemed to be amended in relation to the relevant user to reflect the original intention (as determined from this website) as nearly as possible, but so as to be fair and reasonable and, in any case, in accordance with applicable law.
Amendments to terms of use and privacy statement
We can revise these terms of use and the identity verification service privacy statement at any time and, unless an urgent change is required, will always endeavour to post a notice on the RealMe website summarising the changes at least one month before the changes take effect. There is a link in the footer of the RealMe website (i.e., at the bottom of the screen) called “Log of changes”. You can click on that link at any time to review a summary of the changes we have made to the identity verification service terms of use and privacy statement. Continued use of your verified identity through the RealMe service after the effective date of any changes we make to the terms of use and privacy statement, through the act of your logging in to the RealMe service and accessing your RealMe account, indicates your acceptance of those changes.