Privacy statement
Last updated 19 September 2026
Who we are
Need Help is a New Zealand small-jobs marketplace operated by Colin Odendaal, a New Zealand sole trader trading as Need Help, NZBN 9429052327674.
Business/contact address: 9 Titter Place, Springvale, Whanganui 4501, New Zealand.
Privacy Officer: Colin Odendaal.
Privacy, access and correction requests: support@needhelpapp.nz
You can also use the in-app Support & safety route.
What Need Help does
Need Help connects Customers who post local jobs with Helpers who choose whether to offer to perform them. One account can act as both a Customer and a Helper.
Information we collect
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Account and profile information such as email address, display name, home area, profile photo and role-specific reputation information.
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Job information such as title, description, category, timing, budget, public locality, exact address, access notes and photos. Exact job addresses are kept separate from public job content and are restricted under the accepted-job access rules.
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Marketplace activity such as questions, offers, offer notes, messages, acceptance and revision history, completion evidence, cancellations, resolution proposals and reviews.
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Helper information where you activate as a Helper, including legal name, date of birth, residential address, tax-residence information, IRD/GST information where applicable, business or trading name, NZBN where supplied, marketplace trader-status declaration and Stripe connected-account or payout status.
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Transaction and financial records such as agreed job amounts, platform fees, refunds, additional payments, payment status, payout status, Helper-balance entries and payment-provider identifiers. Need Help does not store full card numbers, card security codes or Helper bank-account numbers.
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Support, safety and fraud-prevention information such as reports, support cases, disputes, evidence, account restrictions and audited administrative actions.
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Technical and security information needed to operate the app such as app/build version, authentication/security events, push-notification registration, ordinary-write/idempotency receipts and diagnostic information generated when a request fails or is reconciled.
Address search and Google Places
When you type an address into Need Help's address-search field, the address query is sent through Need Help's secure server-side Google Places integration so suggestions can be returned.
If you select a street address, Need Help keeps the selected address and Google Place ID needed for the relevant marketplace or account workflow. Need Help does not retain Google Places latitude or longitude.
Google receives the address query and the technical or session information needed to provide the Places service under the Google Privacy Policy. Need Help does not send your Need Help account ID, name or email address in the Places request.
Exact job addresses are not public marketplace content and remain subject to Need Help's restricted address-access rules.
Information collected from other sources
Some personal information may come from another participant or service rather than directly from you. For example, another participant may submit a review or report concerning you; Stripe may provide payment, payout, connected-account, identity or dispute status; Google Places may return selected-address or place information; and push or email providers may return delivery status.
Need Help uses indirectly collected information only for the marketplace, payment, safety, compliance, support and operational purposes described in this statement.
Why we use personal information
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Create and secure accounts and recover account access.
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Publish and operate marketplace jobs, offers, messages and accepted matches.
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Keep exact-location information private until the applicable accepted-job access boundary.
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Verify job eligibility for the supported service area.
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Support Helper activation, marketplace trader-status disclosure, payout readiness, tax and platform-reporting obligations.
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Process Customer payments, Helper payouts, refunds, additional payments, payment-provider disputes and financial reconciliation.
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Provide notifications and transactional account email.
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Provide support, investigate reports, prevent fraud or abuse and protect users and the platform.
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Meet accounting, tax, platform-reporting, AML/CFT or other legal obligations that apply to Need Help.
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Maintain security, diagnose failures, enforce supported app versions and protect idempotent transaction or request processing.
Who information may be shared with
Need Help shares personal information only where needed to operate the marketplace or for a lawful purpose. This can include the other participant in an accepted job, including the exact job address and private coordination information when the accepted-job access rules permit it; service providers acting for or with Need Help; payment networks, banks, card issuers or connected-account providers where needed for payment, authentication, payout, refund or dispute processing; and government, regulatory, law-enforcement bodies or professional advisers where disclosure is required or reasonably necessary for a lawful purpose.
Current core service providers include:
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Supabase for application database, authentication, private file storage, realtime/backend infrastructure and server functions.
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Stripe for Customer payments, Helper connected-account onboarding, payout transfers, refunds and payment or dispute processing.
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Google Maps Platform / Places API for address search and verification.
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Expo Push Service and Google Firebase Cloud Messaging for Android push-notification delivery.
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Resend for Supabase Auth transactional email such as signup confirmation and password recovery.
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ImprovMX for forwarding support@needhelpapp.nz to Need Help's monitored Gmail inbox, and Google/Gmail as the destination email provider.
Provider-specific processing
Stripe
Payment card details such as full card numbers and security codes are entered into Stripe-controlled payment components and are not stored by Need Help. Need Help receives the transaction, payout and provider identifiers needed to operate and reconcile the marketplace. Stripe's mobile components may collect device characteristics and interaction or activity signals for fraud prevention and security. During 3-D Secure authentication, device information may be provided to the relevant payment network or card issuer for authentication and risk assessment.
Push notifications
The Android app uses Expo Push Service and Google Firebase Cloud Messaging. If you enable notifications, Need Help obtains and stores the Expo push token needed to address your app installation. Expo processes the token and temporarily processes notification content while handing messages to the underlying push service. Google/Firebase uses installation or delivery identifiers needed to deliver notifications to the device.
Transactional account email
Need Help uses Supabase Auth with Resend to send transactional account emails such as signup confirmation and password recovery. Resend may process the recipient email address, message metadata and message content needed to deliver and troubleshoot those emails. Resend's current data-processing terms state that its primary processing operations take place in the United States.
Public support and privacy email
If you email support@needhelpapp.nz, the message passes through ImprovMX for forwarding to Need Help's monitored Gmail inbox. ImprovMX processes the sender/recipient and routing/delivery information needed to forward the message and temporarily handles the message content while delivery occurs. ImprovMX states that successfully forwarded messages are deleted after delivery; troubleshooting logs and failed-message retention depend on the configured privacy/logging settings and plan. Google/Gmail then processes the forwarded message so Need Help can receive and respond to it.
Where information is processed or stored
Need Help uses cloud services and some personal information can be processed or stored outside New Zealand. Need Help's primary Supabase project data is hosted in Sydney, Australia. Some provider, network or serverless operations may occur elsewhere according to the relevant provider architecture and terms.
Resend's current data-processing terms state that its primary processing operations take place in the United States. Stripe, Google, Expo/Firebase, ImprovMX and Gmail may also process information outside New Zealand under their applicable service, privacy and data-processing arrangements.
Need Help remains responsible for personal information processed on its behalf by service providers as required by New Zealand privacy law. Where information is disclosed to an overseas recipient for that recipient's own purposes, Need Help applies the relevant Privacy Act 2020 overseas-disclosure requirements.
New Zealand business-record copy
Operational cloud processing is separate from Inland Revenue record-location obligations. Need Help maintains the required business and tax record archive under its approved backup and records process, with the primary statutory copy held on the owner's physical New Zealand computer and a controlled Google Drive redundancy copy.
How long we keep information
Need Help uses purpose-based retention rather than one blanket period.
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Authoritative transaction, platform-fee, payment, refund, payout, accounting and issued transaction-document records are kept for the applicable New Zealand business or tax record period, currently at least the relevant seven tax years where required.
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Helper tax, compliance and platform-reporting records are kept for the applicable statutory or compliance period.
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Routine closed support matters and ordinary non-financial administrative or security audit records are generally reviewed on a shorter operational horizon, currently around two years, unless connected to a longer-lived matter.
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Serious payment-dispute, fraud, safety, enforcement or legal evidence may be retained longer where a genuine legal, investigation, recovery or defence purpose remains.
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Deleted-account review history and minimal deletion audit history follow their approved purpose-specific review periods.
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Ordinary chats, exact addresses, photos, profiles and unrelated support or moderation content are not kept for seven years merely because some financial records have a seven-tax-year obligation.
Information that is no longer needed for a lawful purpose is deleted or de-identified through the approved retention-review process. Issued financial or audit history is not silently rewritten merely to remove an account.
Account deletion
You can request account deletion in the app or through Need Help's public account-deletion resource.
New marketplace commitments stop while deletion is pending. A deletion request can withdraw pending Helper offers and close related pre-transaction conversations; cancelling the deletion request does not restore those withdrawn offers or conversations.
Permanent deletion waits until blockers such as active jobs, unresolved money, payouts, disputes or legitimate support, safety or legal obligations are resolved. Clearing a blocker does not automatically delete the account; you must return and choose the final deletion action.
Permanent deletion removes the Need Help sign-in identity and unnecessary current account data and anonymises the active public profile. Limited transaction, tax, regulatory, support, safety, fraud-prevention and audit records may remain where Need Help still has a lawful reason to keep them. If a Helper used a platform-managed Stripe connected account, Need Help closes that connected account where applicable; Stripe may independently retain processor records it is required or permitted to keep.
Your access and correction rights
You can update ordinary profile information in the app. You may ask Need Help for access to personal information it holds about you or ask for information to be corrected where it is inaccurate.
Contact the Privacy Officer at support@needhelpapp.nz
You can also use the in-app Support & safety route.
Choices, required information and consequences of not providing it
You can choose not to create an account or not to activate as a Helper. Some information is necessary to provide a particular feature. For example, an email address is needed for a Need Help account; job and location information is needed to post and verify a job; and certain identity, tax, marketplace-status and payment information is needed before a Helper can make paid offers or receive payouts.
If required information is not provided, the relevant feature or role may not be available. A field being required for the service does not necessarily mean the law independently requires you to provide it.
Security
Need Help uses access controls, private database areas, row-level security, server-authoritative payment operations, audit trails, protected source and CI, strong authentication for privileged administration and restricted service access to protect sensitive information.
No internet service can promise absolute security. Need Help maintains operational controls for investigating security, fraud and provider-delivery events.
Changes to this statement
Need Help may update this statement as the service, providers or legal obligations change. Material privacy changes will be reflected in the published statement and, where appropriate, surfaced to affected users.
Contact
Need Help / Colin Odendaal
New Zealand sole trader, NZBN 9429052327674
9 Titter Place, Springvale, Whanganui 4501, New Zealand
Privacy Officer: Colin Odendaal
Account deletion information