Review a vendor's privacy position before data sharing becomes the problem

This service is commonly used by businesses that rely on software providers, cloud vendors, agencies, outsourced service providers or other third parties that may access personal information. It is especially relevant where the vendor touches customer data, employee data or sensitive operational information. If your business is comparing suppliers, renewing an existing arrangement or responding to internal concerns about a current vendor, a due diligence review can help clarify where the legal and practical privacy issues sit before more data is shared.

Businesses often run into trouble here when they rely on assumptions instead of checking the scope properly. Common issues include vague statements about how information is stored or disclosed, unclear subcontractor arrangements, weak explanations of retention practices, broad vendor rights to use information, gaps in direct marketing wording and limited transparency around incident response or access controls. How you collect, use and disclose information will shape both the drafting and the advice, so we look for mismatches between the documents and the real vendor role as far as the supplied materials allow.

We review the vendor privacy policy, relevant terms, data handling statements and other supporting materials you provide within the agreed scope. From there, we assess the main legal risk areas, including how the vendor appears to collect, use and share information, what security-related commitments are described, and whether any direct marketing or consent points need attention. You receive a written summary of key findings and practical next steps. If further document negotiation or contract drafting is needed, that can be quoted separately.

Not in an absolute sense. A legal review can identify red flags, missing information and areas where the vendor's documents raise concern, but it cannot give a blanket sign-off on the supplier or promise compliance. The right drafting depends on your actual data flows, including what you collect, why you use it and who receives it, and on what the vendor does in practice behind the documents. This service helps you assess your position and ask better questions before proceeding, rather than replacing technical, procurement or security decision-making.

It helps to provide the vendor privacy policy, terms of service, data processing materials, security summaries, marketing-related wording and any questionnaires or procurement documents already exchanged. If you have particular concerns, such as offshore hosting, customer communications or subcontracting, flag those as well. We then review the material and prepare a written summary of the main privacy risk areas and likely next steps. Depending on the outcome, the next stage may be further questions for the vendor, contract changes, or a broader review of your own privacy position.

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 Vendor Privacy Due Diligence Review 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.