Privacy Policy
June 2026
See Also
1. About this policy
This Privacy Policy explains how PHOTOCLUBHUB LIMITED (“photoclubHub”, “we”, “us”, “our”) collects, uses, stores, and shares your personal information when you use our website at www.photoclubhub.com or our photography club and competition platform (together, “the Services”).
We are committed to protecting your privacy and handling your personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act 2020 (NZ) and the Australian Privacy Act 1988 (Cth).
2. Who this policy applies to
This policy applies to all users of our website and platform, including:
- Photography club administrators and committee members
- Competition organisers and salon directors
- Judges
- Photographers and club members
- Visitors to our website
3. What personal information we collect
3.1 Website visitors
When you visit our website, we automatically collect:
- Browser type, version, and language
- Operating system
- Pages viewed and time spent on each page
- Referring website address
- IP address
- Cookie data (see Section 8)
3.2 Website enquiries and sign-ups
When you submit a form on our website, we collect:
- First and last name
- Email address
- Phone number (optional)
- Organisation or club name
- Website address
- Country
- Number of club members (approximate)
- Competition type and intended start date (where provided)
- Newsletter preference
3.3 Platform accounts
When you register for and use the photoclubHub platform, we collect:
- First and last name
- Email address
- Physical address
- Country
- Phone number (optional)
- Username and encrypted password
- Photography honours and distinctions
- Club memberships and affiliations
- Competition history, scores, rankings, and awards
- Uploaded images and image titles
- Image metadata (EXIF data) — see Section 3.4 below
- Judge comments and scores (where applicable)
- Login history and IP addresses
- Payment reference data including transaction IDs, amounts, dates, status, currency, fees, and PayPal email addresses of payer and receiver
A single photoclubHub account is designed to travel with you across every club and competition on the platform. Competition history, awards, rankings, and participation records remain associated with your account throughout your participation on the platform.
3.4 Image metadata (EXIF data)
Images uploaded to the platform may contain embedded metadata including technical information such as camera model, lens, and capture date.
3.5 Information we receive from third parties
Where you participate in competitions that submit results to recognition organisations such as FIAP, PSA, or APS, those organisations may return award and distinction data to us which we associate with your account.
4. How we use your personal information
We use your personal information for the following purposes:
Website:
- Responding to enquiries and setting up trials or demos
- Sending our newsletter where you have opted in
- Understanding how our website is used (analytics)
Platform:
- Creating and managing your account
- Running photography clubs and competitions
- Processing competition entries and payments
- Facilitating judging of competition entries
- Publishing competition results and catalogues
- Submitting results to recognition organisations (FIAP, PSA, APS) where applicable
- Sending competition and membership notifications
- Maintaining historical competition records retained indefinitely to preserve the integrity and historical accuracy of competition records
- Improving the platform
We will not use your personal information for any purpose incompatible with the purpose for which it was collected without first obtaining your consent.
5. Competition results and public information
By entering a competition on the photoclubHub platform, you acknowledge and agree that competition results will be published and will include:
- Your name
- Club affiliation
- Image title
- Uploaded image
- Awards and distinctions
Competition organisers may choose to withhold scores from published results. All other fields listed above are published for every competition.
Results, once published, form part of the historical competition record retained indefinitely to preserve the integrity and historical accuracy of competition records, even if you later delete your account (see Section 10).
6. Images and intellectual property
You retain full copyright ownership of all images you upload to the platform.
By uploading an image, you grant PHOTOCLUBHUB LIMITED a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to store, reproduce, resize, optimise, display, transmit, cache, back up, and otherwise process that image as reasonably necessary to operate, secure, maintain, and improve the platform.
By entering an image into a competition or club activity, you grant the relevant competition organiser or club a non-exclusive licence to display your image in connection with that competition or club activity, including in results catalogues, online galleries, and award materials. This licence does not extend to commercial use or monetary gain.
You must not upload images that you do not own or have the legal right to use. You must not upload content that is offensive, defamatory, obscene, or otherwise unlawful.
The names photoclubHub and PHOTOCLUBHUB LIMITED, together with associated logos, branding, and identifying marks, are the intellectual property of PHOTOCLUBHUB LIMITED unless otherwise stated.
7. Clubs, competition organisers, and judges
7.1 Competition organisers and club administrators
Competition organisers and club administrators may access entrant information necessary to administer their competitions and clubs, including names, email addresses, entry details, and results. Each competition organiser and club administrator is responsible for their own compliance with applicable privacy laws in connection with that access.
7.2 Judges
Judging on the platform is conducted anonymously – judges cannot see the names of entrants during the judging process. Judge scores are visible to entrants after judging is complete. Judge comments, where provided, are visible to the relevant entrant only. Judges may view other judges’ scores after the judging period has closed.
7.3 Recognition organisations
Where a competition is affiliated with a recognition organisation such as FIAP, PSA, or APS, your name, club affiliation, results, and awards may be submitted to that organisation in accordance with their own rules and privacy policies. We are not responsible for how those organisations handle your information.
Where data has been submitted to a recognition organisation, PHOTOCLUBHUB LIMITED will pass on any correction requests to that organisation but cannot guarantee correction of records held by third parties.
8. Cookies
Our website uses cookies to enable certain functionality and to help us understand how the site is used.
Strictly necessary cookies
These cookies are required for the website to function and cannot be switched off. No consent is required for these cookies. These include standard WordPress session and authentication cookies.
Analytics cookies
We use Google Analytics (GA4) to collect information about how visitors use our website. These cookies do not directly identify you personally.
- _ga – identifies unique users. Expires after 2 years.
- _ga_[property-id] – stores session and event data.
- _gid – distinguishes users within a session. Expires after 24 hours.
- _gat – throttles request rates. Expires after 1 minute.
You may opt out of Google Analytics tracking at any time by installing the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.
Content delivery cookies
When viewing images on the platform, cookies may be set by Amazon Web Services (AWS) CloudFront to enable efficient image delivery. These cookies do not contain personal data.
Platform cookies
The platform uses session cookies to maintain your logged-in state and to retain information required to operate the platform. These cookies do not contain personal data and are deleted when your session ends.
Managing cookies
You can control and delete cookies through your browser settings. Please note that disabling strictly necessary cookies may affect the functionality of the site.
9. Third-party data processors
We use the following third-party services which may store, process, or transfer your personal information. Where services are located outside New Zealand and Australia, we take reasonable steps to ensure your information is protected to a comparable standard.
| Provider | Purpose | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Sitehost NZ | Website hosting and daily backups | New Zealand |
| Amazon Web Services (AWS) | Image storage, delivery, caching, and backup | Australia (Sydney) and other locations required for content delivery |
| Brevo (OVH infrastructure) | Email communications and notifications | France and Germany |
| Google Analytics (Google LLC) | Website analytics | Various locations depending on Google infrastructure |
| PayPal | Payment processing | Various locations depending on PayPal infrastructure |
International transfers
Your personal information may be stored, processed, transferred, or accessed outside New Zealand and Australia where required to provide the platform and associated services. This includes storage of images in Australia, email delivery infrastructure in France and Germany, and analytics and payment processing in various international locations.
We take reasonable steps to ensure that personal information transferred outside New Zealand and Australia is protected in a manner consistent with the Privacy Act 2020 (NZ) and the Australian Privacy Act 1988 (Cth).
10. Data retention and account deletion
Retention periods
| Data type | Retention period |
|---|---|
| Website enquiry data | 2 years from date of enquiry |
| Newsletter subscriber data | Until unsubscribe + 1 year |
| Platform account data | Duration of account + 2 years |
| Competition results, rankings, awards, distinctions, and historical competition records | Retained indefinitely to preserve the integrity and historical accuracy of competition records |
| Uploaded images | Retained indefinitely as part of the historical competition record |
| Payment reference data (transaction IDs, amounts, dates, status, currency, fees, PayPal email addresses) | 7 years (NZ financial record requirements) |
| Website analytics data | 26 months (Google Analytics default) |
Historical competition records
photoclubHub is designed to provide photographers with a continuous record of their participation in clubs and competitions across the platform. To preserve the integrity, accuracy, and historical value of competition records, PHOTOCLUBHUB LIMITED will retain the following information after a user account is closed or deleted:
- Competition participation records, results, rankings, awards, and distinctions
- Uploaded images associated with competition entries
- Image titles and related competition history
This retention is necessary to preserve the historical record of competitions conducted on the platform. Where an image is removed from the platform for legal reasons, the associated competition record may be retained with the image removed. Competition records will not be affected by image removal unless removal is required by a court order or regulatory requirement.
Account deletion and anonymisation
You may request deletion of your account at any time by contacting us at hello@photoclubhub.com. We will action your request within 20 working days.
On account deletion, your personal identifiers – including your name, email address, and other directly identifying information – will be anonymised across your competition records. The competition records themselves, including results, rankings, awards, uploaded images, and image titles, will be retained as part of the historical competition record retained indefinitely to preserve the integrity and historical accuracy of competition records.
Please note that we will also retain the following information after account deletion where required:
- Payment reference data, retained for 7 years in accordance with NZ financial record-keeping requirements
- Any information required to comply with legal obligations or prevent fraud
11. Minimum age
The photoclubHub platform and website are intended for use by individuals aged 18 and over. By creating an account or submitting personal information through our website or platform, you confirm that you are 18 years of age or older.
12. Security
We take reasonable steps to protect your personal information from unauthorised access, loss, misuse, and disclosure. Our security measures include:
- Encrypted connections (HTTPS) across all pages
- Password storage using BCrypt hashing
- Access to database systems restricted to authorised internal staff only
- Website and platform hosted with Sitehost NZ in New Zealand data centres
Images stored on Amazon Web Services (AWS) S3 infrastructure in Sydney, Australia
No method of transmission over the internet is completely secure. While we take all reasonable steps to protect your information, we cannot guarantee absolute security.
13. Privacy breach notification
In the event of a privacy breach that we reasonably believe has caused, or is likely to cause, serious harm to any individual, we will notify the New Zealand Privacy Commissioner and affected individuals as soon as practicable, in accordance with the Privacy Act 2020 (NZ).
For Australian users, we will also notify the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner in accordance with the Australian Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) where a breach meets the threshold for mandatory notification.
14. Your rights
You have the right to:
- Request access to the personal information we hold about you
- Request correction of inaccurate, incomplete, or misleading personal information. The right to correction applies to factual data errors and does not extend to challenging judging decisions or competition outcomes, which are not privacy matters
- Request deletion of your account, subject to the anonymisation and retention provisions described in Section 10. The right to deletion does not extend to competition results, rankings, awards, distinctions, and uploaded images which form part of the historical competition record retained indefinitely to preserve the integrity and historical accuracy of competition records
- Opt out of direct marketing communications at any time
- Make a complaint to the relevant privacy authority (see Section 16)
We will respond to all requests within 20 working days.
15. Changes to this policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. Where changes are material, we will notify registered platform users by email. If you object to any changes, you should stop using the services and may request deletion of your account.
16. Contact and complaints
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or wish to make a privacy complaint, please contact us:
Email: hello@photoclubhub.com
Post: Privacy Officer, PHOTOCLUBHUB LIMITED, 12 Madison Place, Forrest Hill, Auckland, NEW ZEALAND
Online: Contact Us
If you are not satisfied with our response, you may contact:
- New Zealand: Office of the Privacy Commissioner at www.privacy.org.nz
- Australia: Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at www.oaic.gov.au
This policy is governed by the Privacy Act 2020 (NZ).