The Public Service Fale (the Fale) serves and facilitates the Pacific Public Service Commissioners to achieve their goals and strengthen public services for their citizens. FaleOnline has been created for Pacific Public Servants to access training and development resources, engage with the Fale and collaborate with public service colleagues around the Pacific.

The Fale is committed to protecting your privacy when you use FaleOnline. This privacy statement explains what personal information we collect, how we store, use and share it, and how you can access or correct it. It also sets out how we use cookies, collect website statistics and monitor website security.

We sometimes need to update our privacy statement and will update you when we do. This statement was last updated June 2026.

Your personal information

You can use FaleOnline as a guest without disclosing any personal information.

You can choose to voluntarily disclose personal information through FaleOnline (e.g. when you register as a user, ask us a question, share information in a FaleOnline social platform, or complete feedback forms or surveys). This information may include all or some of the following information about you:

• Your name and contact information
• Your job title
• Your workplace
• Your country, age, gender and any other demographic information you provide us
• Website activity on FaleOnline (for more detail see the Cookies, website statistics, and cyber security section below)
• Correspondence with the Fale
• Survey results and responses, when you participate in any of our surveys

Providing some information is optional. If you choose not to enter your name, contact information, job title, workplace and country, we may be unable to register you as a FaleOnline user.

How we use your personal information

We collect your personal information to:

• set up or administer your user access to FaleOnline
• administer, evaluate, and improve FaleOnline
• respond to any of your enquiries.
• notify you about new products or features in FaleOnline
• conduct surveys and research
• provide you access to the information, resources and activities uploaded to FaleOnline
• report on course, resource and activity access, activity completion, course completion and course data (such as grades, scores, submissions and content uploaded)
• undertake system administration and bug tracking
• contact you to advise you of changes to our policies or new FaleOnline products
• monitor IT security

Information you share on FaleOnline

When you share and communicate with other users using FaleOnline (for example contributing to chats and discussion forums, or sharing documents), your name will be displayed for others to see. In some cases, people you share and communicate with may download or re-share this content with others on and off FaleOnline.

How we keep your information safe

We keep your information safe by storing and retaining it in accordance with our privacy policy and internal information policies, protocols, and guidelines, and in compliance with the Privacy Act 2020 and the Public Records Act 2005.

FaleOnline data is backed up at a facility managed by the Fale’s Totara provider, Synapsys Ltd. The backups are held for the purpose of reinstatement of the data, e.g. in the event of failure of a system component.

How we share your information

Public service agencies in the Pacific and New Zealand utilise FaleOnline as their learning management system to host their learning resources, record completion of learning, and monitor access of learning resources. When you register a FaleOnline account and engage with content and training, please be aware that certain information you provide may be shared with authorised personnel of your country's Public Service Commission or equivalent organisation and/or with the organisations delivering the training. This sharing of information is primarily for the purpose of monitoring your progress in completing their training programmes and/or learning frameworks, and reporting on the delivery of their training programmes and/or learning frameworks to their stakeholders. A list of the public service agencies in New Zealand that may collect your information and their contact details is set out at the end of this Privacy Statement. 

The information that may be shared includes but is not limited to:

• Your name and contact information
• Your job title
• Your workplace
• Your country, age, gender and any other demographic information you provide us
• Completion records related to the training content and programme.

How the Fale uses your information

The Fale reports regularly to our stakeholders about the reach and value of FaleOnline (stakeholders include Pacific Public Service Commissions and the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade). When we report about FaleOnline we protect your privacy by only reporting statistical and non-personally identifiable information.

It is important to note that we will only share information to the extent necessary to achieve the aforementioned purposes and will take appropriate measures to ensure the confidentiality and security of your personal data.

If you have any questions or concerns about the sharing of your information, please contact us at faleonline@publicservice.govt.nz

Email communications

FaleOnline users may receive email notifications from FaleOnline for different purposes, including:

• Sessions: Confirmation of sign-up, reminder of session attendance, change in date/time/venue, communication from facilitator or session co-ordinator
• Forums: Notifications of activity – posts, replies, new discussion topics created
• Enrolment: Confirmation of enrolment into a programme, certification, course
• Promotion: Notification of new products or features in FaleOnline
• Feedback: Requests to complete feedback for completed learning

You can adjust your notification settings in their profile or contact FaleOnline@publicservice.govt.nz to request they do not receive FaleOnline related emails.

Your privacy rights

You have the right to ask for a copy of any personal information we or other agencies hold about you, and to ask for it to be corrected if you think it is wrong.

FaleOnline users can change their information by updating their account profile.

If you’d like to ask for a copy of your information, or to have it corrected, please contact us at:

The Privacy Officer
Te Kawa Mataaho Public Service Commission
PO Box 329
Wellington

or send an email to commission@publicservice.govt.nz.

You may contact other agencies holding your information using the details below. Cookies, website statistics, and cyber security

Use of web measurement tools

On this website we use web measurement tools to collect statistical information about your visit. We use this information to help us understand how people are using FaleOnline to improve the site. The information we collect includes:

• Your top level domain name, for example.co.nz
• The pages you visit on the site and the links you select
• The date, time and duration of your visit
• Your operating system, for example Windows 10, Linux or Mac OS
• The kind of technology you use, for example desktop, mobile, tablet
• The type of internet browser you are using to view FaleOnline, for example Firefox or Internet Explorer.

Cookies

Our site uses temporary cookies (files that a website transfers to your computer) to help balance the load on our servers. These cookies do not collect any personal data and are deleted when you close your browser.

Security

In order to improve the security of our IT systems we may use IT monitoring services including monitoring services provided by one or more third parties.  If you provide information to the Commission electronically, you agree that it can be monitored for IT security purposes by the Fale, and by any third parties engaged by the Fale.

Organisations that collect and hold information from FaleOnline

The table below identifies the agencies or organisations that may collect and hold personal information through FaleOnline. An agency will only hold information about you if you access or engage with learning content provided by that agency. Please note that in some cases this includes viewing their material. If you do not access an agency’s content, that agency will not hold your information.

If you would like more information about what personal information is held about you and which agencies hold it, please contact faleonline@publicservice.govt.nz.