About POPIA
The Protection of Personal Information Act, a law passed by the South African parliament, stipulates the conditions that you must follow to lawfully process the personal information about persons.
"To promote the protection of personal information processed by public and private bodies; to introduce certain conditions so as to establish minimum requirements for the processing of personal information; to provide for the establishment of an Information Regulator to exercise certain powers and to perform certain duties and functions in terms of this Act and the Promotion of Access to Information Act, 2000; to provide for the issuing of codes of conduct; to provide for the rights of persons regarding unsolicited electronic communications and automated decision making; to regulate the flow of personal information across the borders of the Republic; and to provide for matters connected therewith."
The personal information of every person must be protected. POPIA breaks down the conditions and steps that must be followed to do so.
Why is there a need for POPIA?
POPIA protects people from harm — be it physical, emotional, or financial. This is the duty of those who process the personal information of ourselves and others.
Access to personal information through various interfaces and devices makes it essential that personal information is legally policed.
Who does POPIA apply to?
POPIA applies to everybody who has processed personal information. It applies to all public and private entities. In terms of POPIA, processing means any operation or activity (either automated or not) that involves the collection, receipt, recording, organisation, collation, storage, updating, retrieval, dissemination, distribution, merging and degradation or erasing of data.
Points of Importance
- Be responsible when processing personal information.
- Take practical, effective steps to protect it whenever possible.
- POPIA applies to virtually everybody.
Role Players
Data Subject
The person who the personal information is about.
Responsible Party
The organisation that decides how and why to process personal information.
Operator
The party that processes personal information for the responsible party.
When data is processed, the following is pertinent:
The Responsible Person is legally accountable to comply with POPI.
The RP must have a good reason for processing information, e.g. consent.
The DS must know the reason why the RP is processing their personal information.
The RP must ensure that if PI is processed again, it must be used for the original purpose that they informed the DS about.
The RP must ensure the PI they process is accurate and complete.
The RP must process PI in a way that allows the DS to know what is happening to their PI.
The RP must provide appropriate and reasonable security measures for PI.
The RP must communicate with the DS about processing and must allow the DS to correct or update their info.
Safe Working Practice and POPIA
This policy describes how Safe Working Practice collects and utilises your personal information, how we secure it, and your choices and rights in relation to your personal information.
It includes the storing and/or processing of Personal Data collected by Safe Working Practice when:
- You request consulting and other related services.
- You utilise our solutions, software, and affiliated products.
- You provide access to your infrastructure through tools such as Teamviewer and Remote Desktop.
- You visit our websites.
- You visit our social media pages and interact with marketing communication.
- You provide us with information by filling in a form.
- You contact us (or we contact you), whether by telephone, email, or other methods.
This policy also applies to the processing of Personal Data collected by us from third parties, including public databases, social media sites, affiliate business partners with whom we offer services, in the context of a sponsorship, and other third parties.
Personal Information We Collect
You may browse our websites without submitting any personally identifiable information at all. We will only collect personal information if you choose to fill out and submit a contact form or when requesting services using a chatbot. The kinds of information we collect will vary depending on how you utilise the website.
You also have the option of providing information regarding your interest in Safe Working Practice and whether you would like a sales representative to contact you. In these forms we will collect:
- Full Name
- Company Name
- Email Address
- Contact Number
We may also collect other information that does not personally identify you, such as browser and device information, website usage data, IP addresses, demographic information, geographic location, home language, and information collected through cookies and other technologies, or information that has been anonymised or aggregated.
You can choose not to provide personal information to us when requested. However, if this is necessary to provide you with our solutions, products and services, or to perform administrative functions, we may be unable to fulfil these functions.
Legal Basis for Processing Your Personal Information
When we process your personal information in connection with the purposes set out in this policy, we may rely on one or more of the following legal bases:
- Our legitimate interests for the purpose of managing, operating, or promoting our business, including direct marketing — except where such interests are overridden by your interests or fundamental rights or freedoms.
- Where this is necessary to comply with a legal obligation on us.
- To protect the vital interests of any individual.
- Where you have consented for such processing to take place.
How We Use Your Personal Information
We may use your personal information to improve our solutions, products, and services, for example to:
- Perform administrative and business functions and internal reporting.
- Obtain feedback from you about our services, products and solutions, including through client surveys.
- Respond to your enquiries.
- Send marketing communications to you.
- Enable you to subscribe to our newsletters and mailing lists.
- Enable you to register for Safe Working Practice events, workshops, and conferences.
- Inform you about and provide you with our products, services, and solutions.
- Update our records and keep your contact details up to date.
- Process and respond to privacy requests, questions, concerns, and complaints.
- Fulfil legal and contractual obligations.
Sharing Your Personal Information
We may share your personal information in the following circumstances:
- Where you consent to the sharing of your personal information.
- For legal reasons and to protect the rights, property, or safety of Safe Working Practice, its associate business partners, you, or others, or as otherwise required by applicable law.
Any third parties with whom we share personal information are contractually required to implement appropriate data protection and security measures, and are not permitted to use personal information for any purpose other than the purpose for which they are provided with or given access to personal information.
Security of Your Personal Information
We take reasonable steps to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this Privacy Policy. All information you provide to us is stored on secure servers. We limit access to information by our own employees, contractors, site service providers, and those individuals who are authorised for the proper handling of such information. We request that our third-party contractors and site service providers follow similar standards of security and confidentiality.
Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will take reasonable steps to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of data transmitted to our site; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to endeavour to prevent unauthorised access.
Where We Store Your Personal Data
The data that we collect from you may be transferred to and/or stored outside your territory. It may also be processed by staff operating outside your territory who work for us or for one of our service providers.
Your Rights in Relation to Your Personal Data
You have the following rights in relation to your personal data (some of these rights apply only in certain circumstances, and some vary according to the legal basis on which we are processing your data or the territory you are in):
The right to ask whether we are processing your personal data and, if we are, to find out details of that processing (including obtaining a copy).
The right to ask us to correct any personal data we hold about you that is inaccurate or incomplete.
The right to ask us to delete personal data that we hold about you.
The right to object to how we are processing your personal data, and to ask us to restrict how we are processing it.
The right to have your personal data provided to you in a structured and commonly used electronic format.
Personal data collected through Safe Working Practice is not sold to any third parties.
The right not to be discriminated against for exercising the rights available to you under applicable data protection laws.
If you wish to exercise any of these rights (for example you no longer wish to receive marketing from us), you can use the unsubscribe link in our email correspondence or contact info@safepractice.co.za. Please note, in some circumstances we may need to take steps to verify your identity prior to fulfilling your request.
Cookies and Similar Technologies
The use of cookies is not currently in place on any of our websites. Should this change in the future, this policy will be updated accordingly.
Communication and Direct Marketing
We may contact you to notify you regarding your account with Safe Working Practice, to troubleshoot problems, to resolve a dispute, to collect fees or monies owed, to poll your opinions through surveys or questionnaires, to send updates about our company, or as otherwise necessary to contact you about any agreement we may have with you or your organisation. For these purposes we may contact you via email, telephone, text messages, and postal mail.
We may send you direct marketing communications about our solutions, products, and services — including information on events, conferences and webinars presented by Safe Working Practice. You may opt out at any time by:
- Following the unsubscribe instructions included in each marketing email.
- Sending an email to the sender of the marketing communications.
- Sending a request to info@safepractice.co.za.
If you opt out of receiving marketing communications, we may still send you administrative messages as part of your ongoing use of our products, solutions, and services, which you will be unable to opt out of. We do not provide your personal information to unaffiliated third parties for direct marketing purposes, or sell, rent, distribute, or otherwise make personal information commercially available to any third party.
Retaining Your Personal Information
We will retain your personal information for as long as is necessary to fulfil the purpose for which it was collected, unless a longer retention period is required to comply with legal obligations, resolve disputes, protect our assets, or enforce agreements.
Links to Other Websites
Our site may, from time to time, contain links to and from the websites of our software publisher network and affiliates. If you follow a link to any of these websites, please note that these websites have their own privacy policies and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for these policies. Please check these policies before you submit any personal data to these websites.
Updates to This Privacy Policy
We reserve the right to modify this privacy policy at any time, so please review it frequently. Changes and clarifications will take effect immediately upon their posting on the website. If we make material changes to this policy, we will notify you here that it has been updated, so that you are aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we use and/or disclose it.
How to Contact Us
If you would like to access, correct, amend, or delete any personal information we have about you, you are invited to contact us:
11 Boundary Road, Gordons Bay
We are committed to working with you to obtain a fair resolution of any complaint or concern about privacy. If, however, you believe that we have not been able to assist with your complaint or concern, you also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator.
Safe Working Practice POPIA Legal Disclaimer
- The information contained on this website is for general guidance purposes only. It should not be taken for, nor is it intended as, legal advice.
- We would like to stress that there is no substitute for customers making their own detailed investigations or seeking their own professional advice if they are unsure about the implications of POPIA on their businesses.
- Safe Working Practice will not accept any liability for errors or omissions and will not be liable for any damage (including, without limitation, damage for loss of business or loss of profits) arising in contract, tort or otherwise, from the use of or reliance on this information or from any action or decisions taken because of using this information.