Forum privacy notice
What the forum collects about you, why, where it is kept and who else sees it. Written to meet section 18 of the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA). The guide itself collects nothing; see privacy on the guide.
Who is responsible
Imbertech (Pty) Ltd, 57 Oak Avenue, Riverclub, Sandton, 2191, South Africa. Our Information Officer is Sybrand de Kock, reachable at admin@zasurvivalguide.co.za.
What we collect and why
- Username, email address, password (stored scrambled), and any profile details you add
- To run your account, sign you in and send the notifications you choose. Username, email and password are needed for an account. Profile details are optional.
- Your posts, suggestions and private messages
- They are what the forum is for. Suggestions help us correct the guide. Only what you choose to post.
- IP address, browser details and times of visits
- Security, stopping spam and abuse, and fixing faults. Collected automatically when you use the forum.
- Your membership's subscription number, linked to your forum account
- To switch member extras on and off as your membership starts and ends. Only if you buy a membership.
- Emails you send us
- To answer you. Only if you write to us.
We do not collect ID numbers and ask you not to post them. No law requires us to collect any of this; we collect it because you asked for an account.
Where it is kept
The forum, its database and its backups run on Amazon Web Services servers in Cape Town. Forum emails are sent through Amazon's email service in Cape Town. Backups are made daily and deleted after at most 60 days.
Who else handles it
- Amazon Web Services hosts the forum and sends its email, in Cape Town.
- Cloudflare carries traffic between you and the forum and protects it from attacks. Your connection passes through its network, which is global; it does not store forum data.
- Lemon Squeezy (United States) sells memberships. It collects your name, billing details and payment directly under its own privacy policy. It sends us your subscription status and your forum account number, nothing else.
- Microsoft hosts the mailbox that receives email sent to admin@zasurvivalguide.co.za.
- An AI assistant may sort suggestions before a moderator reads them. It sees the text with usernames, email addresses and ID numbers removed, and it decides nothing; a person does.
Cloudflare, Lemon Squeezy and the AI assistant can mean your information leaves South Africa. Section 72 of POPIA allows that when the receiving company is bound by protection similar to POPIA, or when you agree to it. We use companies whose terms bind them to protect it, and you agree to these transfers when you open an account or buy a membership.
We do not sell your information, and we do not use it for advertising.
Cookies
The forum uses cookies only to sign you in, keep you signed in and protect forms from forgery. There are no advertising or analytics cookies. Profile pictures are not fetched from outside services.
How long we keep it
- Your account and posts: until you close your account or ask us to delete them.
- When you close an account, we delete it, or, where others have replied to your posts, remove your name and details and keep the posts so the threads still make sense.
- Your membership link: while your account exists, and deleted on request.
- Server logs: a short time, for security only.
Your rights
- Ask what we hold about you and get a copy (section 23).
- Ask us to correct or delete it (section 24).
- Object to how we use it (section 11(3)).
- Choose which emails the forum sends you, in your preferences. We send no marketing email without your consent.
Write to admin@zasurvivalguide.co.za. You can also complain to the Information Regulator: inforegulator.org.za, POPIAComplaints@inforegulator.org.za.
If something goes wrong
If someone gets into your information without permission, we tell the Information Regulator and you as soon as reasonably possible, as section 22 requires, with what happened and what you can do.