By signing up you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
What we collect, what never leaves your device, and who else sees anything.
Last updated: October 2026
Politika is an independent, non-partisan platform that helps New Zealanders understand Parliament, MPs, parties, policies and elections. We are not affiliated with the Government or any political party. This policy explains how we handle personal information under the Privacy Act 2020. Politika isn’t a registered company or a charity: it is built and run by one person, Tawhiao Watene, who is responsible for the information described here and who a donation is paid to. You can reach us any time at hello@politika.nz or through the contact page.
Politika is free, and there is nothing to pay for. There is no paid tier and nothing is held back. You can donate if you want to, and nothing about the site changes whether you do or you don’t. Card details are typed on Stripe’s own page and never reach us.
Reading the site, parties, policies, MPs, bills, the map, the news feed, needs no account and no sign-in. Tracking things does need an account, so that we can tell you when they move. If you work through the Learn modules while signed out, that progress is saved in your own browser and never sent to us. See “What stays on your device” below.
Signing in uploads what was in your browser. If you followed things or did Learn modules before making an account, they are copied to your account the first time you sign in, and cleared from your browser. That is how your dashboard has them on your other devices, but it does mean choices you made while signed out become part of your account.
Donating is optional and needs no account. Your card details never reach us. The donate button sends you to Stripe’s own page, on Stripe’s website, and the card number, expiry and security code are typed there. We never see them and they are never on our servers.
What Stripe passes back, and what we keep, is the record of the donation: your name and email address as you gave them to Stripe, the amount, whether you covered the processing fee, whether you asked for email updates, a reference, and when it was paid. We keep it to send you a receipt, to answer you if you ask about your donation, and so money coming in can be accounted for. If your card needed a billing address, Stripe holds it; we don’t read it or store it.
We don’t publish donor names and we don’t pass them to anyone. No party, campaign or candidate is told who gave, or that you gave at all.
Two things worth naming. A donation shows up on your bank or card statement, so anyone who can see your statement can see it. And because we are the merchant, Stripe keeps its own customer record of your name and email on our account, as well as the record we keep.
The email updates tick box is off unless you tick it. It records, with your donation, that you’d like them. Anything we send you afterwards has an unsubscribe link in it.
Email updates without an account. You can also join our mailing list without an account, through the email box on our pages. For that we store your email address, where on the site you signed up, and when. Every email we send has an unsubscribe link.
We keep a record that an alert was sent to you, so we don’t send the same one twice. We don’t sell your address, we don’t share it for marketing, and we don’t send advertising.
Signed out, the site remembers things in your browser’s own storage. It never reaches our servers, and clearing your browser data removes it: the one thing you last tapped Track on before signing up (so it can be tracked for you once you are in), your Learn scores, which onboarding steps you’ve done, whether you’ve asked for jargon to be explained, your answers to the quick guide (including whether you said you’re enrolled), banners you’ve dismissed, and when you last looked at a particular MP’s page. Your browser also keeps two random codes for our visit counts (see “Cookies and measurement”); they identify a browser, not a person.
We use sign-in cookies, which keep you logged in and keep the sign-in process secure, andone cookie for the pledge counter, which records that this browser has already pledged so you aren’t counted twice. There are no advertising cookies and no third-party tracking cookies.
We do measure how the site performs, page speed and how pages are used, through our host, Vercel. It’s cookieless and not tied to your account. One thing worth naming: if you finish the political compass, we record that it was finished, how many issues you engaged with, and the voting-frequency option you picked. Your actual answers, your issues and any party leaning are not sent, we only learn that the tool is being used and roughly by whom.
We also count page visits ourselves, so we can see which pages are useful. Each visit records the page’s address (without anything after a “?”), a random code your browser keeps so we can count visitors rather than visits, a second random code that lasts one visit, whether you’re on a phone, tablet or computer, and, on the first page of a visit, the name of the site that linked you here. We don’t record your IP address when counting page visits, and none of this is tied to your account. Visits from search-engine robots aren’t counted.
Pledging records one line: the time, your email, your name if you gave one, a random code kept in a cookie on your device so you aren’t counted twice, and your account if you’re signed in.
The name is optional, the email isn’t. The email is how each person is counted once, because a cookie can be cleared and an address can’t be. We don’t send anything to it unless you tick the box asking us to. Nothing is recorded until you confirm, so opening the form and leaving it records nothing.
Your name only appears publicly if you tick that box, and it shows as a first name and a surname initial, like “John D.”. Never your full name, never your email. Leave it unticked and you appear as “Anonymous”. Asking to be emailed is a separate box, and neither is ticked for you.
We also store a scrambled one-way code made from your internet address. It exists only to stop automated scripts inflating the count, it is not your IP address, and it cannot be turned back into one.
We don’t ask whether you’re enrolled, we just point you at vote.nz to check. We never learn whether you enrolled or actually voted. Nobody can — the Electoral Commission doesn’t share that, and it shouldn’t.
We keep this list short on purpose. When you use Politika, these are the others involved:
These are all overseas companies, mostly in the United States, with Zoho Mail in Australia, so your information is stored and handled outside New Zealand. We only use providers required to protect it to a standard comparable to New Zealand’s, and they hold it to provide their service to us rather than for their own purposes. Stripe is the exception: it also uses what you give it for its own payment and fraud checks, under its own privacy policy. We don’t otherwise disclose your information except where the law requires it.
Under the Privacy Act 2020 you can ask to see or correct the personal information we hold about you, and you can ask us to delete your account and everything attached to it. Email hello@politika.nz or use the contact page and we’ll do it. There is no self-service delete button yet, until there is, we do it by hand on request, which we’ll confirm to you when it’s done.
If you donated, that isn’t attached to an account, so closing an account doesn’t reach it. Email hello@politika.nz with the reference from your receipt and we can tell you what we hold, correct it, or take your name and email off both our record and the customer record Stripe keeps on our account. The payment itself stays on Stripe’s books under its own rules, the way a bank keeps a transaction.
If you’re not satisfied with how we respond, you can raise it with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner (privacy.org.nz).
We keep your information for as long as you have an account, and delete it when you ask us to. We take reasonable steps to protect it: everything tied to an account is locked to that account at the database level, so one person’s saved items can’t be read by another. If a notifiable privacy breach happens we’ll act in line with the Privacy Act, including telling the Privacy Commissioner and the people affected where required.
Donation records are different. They aren’t attached to an account, and we haven’t set a time limit on them. We’d rather say that plainly than name a period nothing enforces. Ask us and we’ll take your name and email off the record.
Our Learn content includes a Kids tier. It needs no account and collects nothing. Accounts are meant for adults, and we don’t knowingly collect personal information from children.
What we publish about MPs, candidates and parties comes from official public records, Parliament, the Electoral Commission, Stats NZ, and their own published material, and relates to their public roles. Contact details we show for MPs are the ones Parliament publishes. We don’t publish private details such as home addresses.
We’ll update this policy as the site changes, and change the date above when we do. Questions, corrections or a request about your information: hello@politika.nz or the contact page.
