Document how HR data is handled between you and your clients

You will usually need one when your consultancy handles personal information for a client as part of recruitment, people operations, payroll support, performance management, investigations, onboarding or similar HR services. In those arrangements, the contract often needs to spell out who is giving instructions, what categories of information are involved, what processing is permitted, and what safeguards are expected. It is particularly important where sensitive workforce information is being accessed by your team or by third-party tools used in delivering the service.

A privacy policy explains your external privacy position, usually to individuals such as candidates, employees or website users. A data processing agreement is different because it governs the contractual relationship between your consultancy and the client whose information you handle. It usually deals with operational matters such as instructions, confidentiality, subprocessors, security expectations, assistance with privacy requests, incident-related obligations and what happens to the data when the engagement ends. In short, one is outward-facing disclosure, while the other is a service contract between businesses.

It commonly covers the parties' roles, the categories of personal information involved, the permitted handling activities, confidentiality obligations, security-related commitments, use of third-party providers, assistance with access or correction requests, incident notification steps, audit or information rights, and deletion or return of data at the end of the engagement. For HR consultancies, it may also need to address candidate records, employee files, screening information, references, payroll-related data or internal people analytics. The legal position depends heavily on how the business handles information in practice.

We usually need a practical picture of your services and data flows. That may include what HR functions you perform, whether you act on client instructions, what types of employee or candidate information are involved, which software providers or subcontractors are used, whether information is stored or accessed outside New Zealand, and how long records are kept. The right approach depends on the working arrangement, documents and factual context, so the more accurately the arrangement is described, the more useful the agreement will be.

Often not. Generic templates can miss the specific issues that come up when a consultancy handles workforce information across recruitment, onboarding, investigations or advisory work. They may use broad language that does not match who actually gives instructions, what systems are involved, or whether data is shared with specialist providers. A template also may not line up with your client services agreement. This service You will get a clear view of the legal issues and the next steps that matter. or fix poor information-handling practices on its own.

Just submit an enquiry via this page or click the 'get started' button on our website to submit an enquiry. After you've submitted an enquiry, one of our legal consultants will review your enquiry within 1 business day and get in touch to get a better idea of exactly what you are looking for.

Then your legal consultant will send through an email with a bit more information about the services you need, along with a fixed fee quote setting out costs, scope of the service and timing. Have a read through it, and if you're happy with the scope, you can accept and sign our engagement letter online - easy!

Once you've formally accepted, we'll connect you with a specialist lawyer and they will work with you to complete your project. They will contact you by email or phone if they need to get in touch.

Sprintlaw works on fixed-fee pricing wherever possible, so you can review the scope and cost before you decide whether to proceed. For the HR Data Processing Agreement service, pricing starts from $900.00.

After you enquire, a legal consultant will confirm what is included, the expected timing and whether any extra work is needed before you engage us.

We operate completely online, which means we can help you wherever you are in New Zealand. We have office spaces in Sydney, and in Melbourne, but our use of technology allows our team members to work remotely from around the world. Our legal team are mostly based in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. We also have a London office for Sprintlaw UK.

Our legal team is made up of experienced lawyers, who are specialists in various areas of law and hold an Australian legal practising certificate. None of our Sprintlaw lawyers are New Zealand qualified lawyers and they do not currently hold a New Zealand practising certificate.

They provide legal services working remotely from Australia via our 'legal consultancy' model, through which (under section 6 and section 35 of the New Zealand Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006) our Australian legal team are permitted to provide legal services to New Zealand businesses provided they do not provide services in certain 'reserved' areas of law. You can read our FAQ page to learn a bit more about our 'legal consultancy' model.

Given the strong similarities between Australian and New Zealand law, and the areas of law in which we practice (being small business and startup law), we do not view the fact that our lawyers have not qualified in New Zealand as having any substantive impact on the quality of our service. We are committed to ensuring that we provide high quality, affordable legal services to all our New Zealand clients.

Our legal team have all trained at leading firms, but have left the traditional corporate law world to join us on our mission to create a new and better way of delivering legal services. They have specialist expertise in technology law, intellectual property law, contract drafting and review, corporate law and commercial law.