The right to privacy is an integral human right recognised and protected in the South African Constitution and in the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (“POPIA”). This Privacy Policy is applicable to data collected by Hi-Tec and its affiliates / subsidiaries (Hi-Tec Group).
The Hi-Tec Group respects the privacy of all personal data and private information collected, processed, and stored. As such, we undertake to handle all personal information received and processed with due care and provide the necessary security to safeguard all information held by us.
This policy explains our privacy practices and the choices you have about the way your personal information will be dealt with. All practices are in line with the provisions of Protection of Personal Information Act, 4 of 2013 (POPIA) and Promotion of Access to Information Act, 2 of 2000 (PAIA)
YOUR RIGHTS
1. The Right to be Informed
1.1. You have the right to be informed when your personal information is collected, processed and stored, the type of information collected and the purposes for which it is collected, processed and stored.
1.2. You are hereby notified that your personal information Personal information is collected
1.2.1. When you contact us via the website
1.2.2. When you purchase online
1.2.3. When you subscribe to our newsletters
1.2.4. When visiting our physical stores, either via CCTV footage or if join our in-store loyalty programme.
1.3. We may require you to provide us with personal information which includes but is not limited to –
1.3.1. Your full name and surname / Company Name
1.3.2. Your email address;
1.3.3. Your physical address;
1.3.4. Your mobile number; and
1.3.5. Your Identification number / Registration Number;
1.3.6. Financial Information.
1.4. The purpose of collecting your information includes the following reasons:
1.4.1. To maintain a database of all clients;
1.4.2. Rendering of service;
1.4.3. Instituting legal proceedings
1.4.4. Tracing
1.4.5. Credit enquiries
1.4.6. Marketing
1.5. You further have the right to be informed whether your information is disclosed to third parties.
1.5.1. We may distribute your information to third parties for tracing, credit check or collection of outstanding fees.
1.5.2. Your personal information may also be disclosed in special situations to law enforcement, government officials, fraud detection agencies or other third parties where Stratex has reason to believe that doing so is necessary to identity or act against anyone damaging or interfering with our rights or property, users, or anyone else that could be harmed by such activities or to report or support the investigation into suspected illegal activity.
1.6. We will inform you where we have reasonable grounds to believe that your personal information has been accessed or acquired by an unauthorised person.
2. The right to access of personal information
2.1. You have the right to request access to your information and other information held by the Company, which records is contained in our PAIA Manual.
2.2. Such request should be done through completing the relevant Form 2, available from the information regulator website or through this link: https://inforegulator.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/InfoRegSA-PAIA-Form02-Reg7.pdf
2.3. Such request is made directly to the Deputy Information Officer by using the following e-mail address: lawrences@hi-tec.co.za
2.4. We may refuse to give access to certain records and should you be aggrieved by the decision, you may lay a complaint at the Information Regulator or apply to court, at your own expense. We have no internal appeal process.
3. The Right to have Personal Information Corrected or Deleted
3.1. You have the right to request, where necessary, that your personal information must be corrected, or deleted where we are no longer authorised to retain the personal information.
3.2. Should your personal information change, please inform us and provide us with updates to your personal information as soon as reasonably possible to enable us to update your personal information.
3.3. You may choose to provide additional personal information to us, in which event you agree to provide accurate and current information, and not to impersonate or misrepresent any person or entity or falsely state or otherwise misrepresent your affiliation with anyone or anything.
3.4. Please note that certain information must be kept for a certain period as prescribed in terms of law. You can obtain this information from our POPI Policy, which is also available on request from our Information Officer.
4. The Right to Object to the Processing of Personal Information
4.1. You have the right, on reasonable grounds, to object to the processing of your personal information.
4.2. If you have subscribed to our newsletter or loyalty programme etc. and you change your mind after you have opted in, you may withdraw your consent for us to contact you, collect more information, use, or disclose your information, at any time, by contacting us lawrences@hi-tec.co.za, alternatively you can use the unsubscribe button linked to the marketing letter.
4.3. We may cease to use or disclose your personal information and may, subject to any statutory and contractual record keeping requirements, also approve the destruction of the personal information.
5. The Right to Complain to the Information Regulator
5.1. You have the right to submit a complaint to the Information Regulator regarding an alleged infringement of any of the rights protected under POPIA and to institute civil proceedings regarding the alleged non-compliance with the protection your personal information.
SECURITY MEASURES / PROTECTION OF PERSONAL INFORMATION:
1. To protect your personal information, we take precautions, have appropriate technical and organisational measures in place and follow industry best practices to make sure it is not inappropriately lost, misused, accessed, disclosed, altered, or destroyed.
2. We undertake to promptly notify you if we become aware of any unauthorised use, disclosure, or processing of your personal information.
3. We will not retain your personal information longer than the period for which it was originally needed, unless we are required by law to do so, or you consent to us retaining such information for a longer period. This information will be treated in accordance with South African Law.
4. We do not store credit card details on our website, this information is securely stored with our trusted 3rd party payment gateway, Peach Payments. Please visit their Privacy Policy for more information.
5. We undertake to never to sell or make your personal information available to any third party other than as provided for in this policy.
6. If you provide us with your personal information, the information is encrypted using secure socket layer technology (SSL). Although no method of transmission over the internet or electronic storage is 100% secure, we follow and implement additional generally accepted industry standards.
7. All newsletter subscribers, (i.e. our emailer database) information safely secured within MailChimp (our emailer marketing platform). Please refer to their Privacy Policy for more information. Mailchimp’s Privacy Policy.
8. Please note whilst we will do all things reasonably necessary to protect your rights of privacy, we cannot guarantee or accept any liability whatsoever for unauthorised or unlawful disclosures of your personal information, whilst in our possession, made by third parties who are not subject to our control, unless such disclosure is as a result of our gross negligence.
THIRD PARTY RIGHTS & LINKING TO THIRD PARTY WEBSITES
A. Third Party Services
In general, the third-party providers used by us will only collect, use, and disclose your information to the extent necessary to allow them to perform the services they provide us.
For these providers, we recommend that you read their privacy policies, so you can understand the way your personal information will be handled by these providers.
We may share your information with third-party platform providers (such as Facebook, LinkedIn Google, and Twitter) to serve targeted advertising / content to you via the relevant third-party platform, based on your profile / interests. Your information is used by the third-party platform provider to identify your account and serve advertisements to you. You can control what advertisements you receive via the privacy settings on the relevant provider’s platform and you should consult the third party’s help / support centre for more information.
Once you leave our website or are redirected to a third-party website or application, you are no longer governed by this Privacy Policy or our website’s terms and conditions.
B. Links
When you click on links on our site, they may direct you away from our site. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of other sites and encourage you to read their privacy statements.
C. Please note your use of the links and Thid-Party Websites is entirely at your own risk and we are not responsible for any loss, expense, claim or damage, whether direct, indirect, or consequential, arising from your use of such links or Third-Party Websites or your reliance on any information contained therein. This is because we do not regulate or control how that third party uses your personal information.
REVIEW OF PRIVACY POLICY
We review our privacy policy annually, and where necessary amend it. If we change our privacy policy we will post the changes on this page, and may place notices on other pages of the website, so that you may be aware of the information we collect and how we use it at all times. Note that continued use of the service will signify that you agree to any such changes
INFORMATION
Our contact information and how to obtain access is set out in our PAIA manual, available on the website. If you want any more information, contact our Deputy Information officer, Lawrence Small at lawrences@hi-tec.co.za
WEBSITE COOKIE POLICY
Please be advised that our Website uses cookies to provide you with a more personalised service and to help make our websites, applications, and services better for you. Neither cookies nor web beacons collect personal information such as the user’s name or email address.
You may reject cookies. You can manage browser cookies through your browser setting. The “Help” feature on most browsers will tell you how to prevent your browser from accepting new cookies; how to have the browser notify you when you receive a new cookie; how to disable cookies; and when cookies will expire. If you disable all cookies on your browser, the Company, nor any of its third parties, will transfer cookies to your browser. If you do this, however, you may have to manually adjust some preferences every time you visit a site, and some features and services may not work.
Through cookies, we may also automatically receive and store certain personally non-identifiable information (“Log Data”). This Log Data includes your computer’s internet protocol (IP) address, browser type or the domain from which you are visiting, the site pages you visit, the search terms you use, and any advertisements on which you click. This is information that helps us learn about your browser and operating system. For most users accessing the Internet from an Internet service provider, the IP address will be different every time you log on. We use Log Data to provide you with the services and pool it with other information to monitor the use of the services, and for the technical administration of the services. We do not associate your IP address with any other Personal Information to identify you personally, except in cases where we are asked to comply with a subpoena or other legal demand or where we suspect that there has been a violation of our policies, our Terms of Service and/or applicable law.
Our cookies may be:
a) Session cookies: These are temporary cookies that identify and track users within our websites, applications, or services and are deleted when you close your browser or leave your session in the application or service, or
b) Strictly Necessary Cookies: These are cookies that are needed for our websites, applications, or services to function properly.
c) Performance Cookies & Analytics Technologies: These cookies collect information about how visitors and users use our websites, applications, and services. For instance, it can gather information about which functionality visitors use most often, and if they get error messages from areas of the websites, applications, or services. These cookies don’t collect information that identifies a visitor or user. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. We only use these cookies to improve how our website, applications, and services work.
d) Functionality Cookies: These cookies allow our websites, applications, and services to remember choices you make (such as your user name, language, or the region you are in) and provide enhanced, more personalised features. They may also be used to provide services you have asked for. The information these cookies collect may be anonymised and they cannot track your browsing activity on other websites.
e) Targeting or Advertising Cookies: These cookies are used to deliver adverts more relevant to you and your interests. They are also used to limit the number of times you see an advertisement and help measure the effectiveness of the advertising campaign. They are usually placed by advertising networks with the website operators’ permission. They remember that you have visited a website and this information is shared with other organisations such as advertisers. Quite often, targeting or advertising cookies will be linked to site functionality provided by the other organisation.
Web Beacons & Parameter Tracking:
We also use cookies and similar software known as web beacons to count users who have visited our website after clicking through from one of our advertisements on another website or in emails. These web beacons collect limited information and does not identify particular individuals. It is not possible to refuse the use of web beacons. However, because they are used in conjunction with cookies, you can effectively disable them by setting your browser to restrict or block cookies.