Privacy Statement
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 on 12 April 2024.
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:
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.
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 agency’s training content and programme.
The Fale report 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 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:
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.
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.
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.