Privacy Policy
This is the privacy statement of The Awareness Company. In this document, “we” or “us” refer to The Awareness Company (Pty) Ltd, a private company with limited liability, duly registered in South Africa under registration number 2017/484789/07.
We developed the HYDRA software to allow organisations to digitise their operations.
This policy governs the collection, use, processing, storing, disclosure and destruction of personal information for users of this service.
This is a statement to tell you our policy about all information that we record about you. It covers both information that could identify you and information that could not.
We place a high value on the protection of your privacy and treat all personal information with the required confidentiality and in line with legislation. We understand that all users of our software are quite rightly concerned about any potential use of their data and wish to be assured that such data will not be used for any purpose unintended by them, and will not accidentally fall into the hands of an unauthorised third party. Our policy is both specific and strict and complies with the South African law, specifically POPI (more about this below). If you think our policy falls short of your expectations or that we are failing to abide by our policy, please do tell us.
Information Collection and Use
By using the HYDRA software, you agree to the collection and use of information in relation to this policy. The information to be collected will include personal information, being data that can be used to identify a person. The personal information that we collect from you will be used for providing the service to you and your organisation or stakeholders. Your information will not be used or shared with anyone except as described in our General Terms and Conditions, as read with this policy, and the terms used in this Privacy Policy have the same meanings as in our Terms and Conditions, unless otherwise defined in this Privacy Policy.
The Protection of Personal Information Act, No 4 of 2013 (POPIA), is in full effect in South Africa as from 1 July 2021. This piece of legislation was promulgated with the view to, amongst others, promote the protection of personal information processed by public and private bodies, and to introduce certain conditions so as to establish minimum requirements for the processing of such information.
To enhance the user experience during use of the service, we may require you to provide us with certain personal / personally identifiable information, including but not limited to your full names, ID number, e-mail address, geo-location (GPS), phone number, gender, and date of birth.
The information that you supply will be retained by us and used, processed, shared and – where applicable - destroyed as described in this policy, and in full compliance with POPIA.
The HYDRA software and/or app also make use of third party information and services, which third parties may independently collect information used to identify you. In particular, we make use of the following unaffiliated third party providers, whose respective privacy policies are provided in the links below, and which we encourage you to familiarise yourself with, as we cannot assume any liability for the way they may treat personal information:
Log Data
Whenever you use our Service, in the case of an error in the app, we will collect data and information (through third party products) on your phone called Log Data. Such Log Data may include information such as your device Internet Protocol (“IP”) address, device name, operating system version, the configuration of the app when utilising our service, the time and date of your use of the service, and other related statistics.
Security
We value your trust in providing us with your personal information. We are therefore striving to use commercially acceptable means of protecting it. However, it is important to note that no method of transmission over the internet, or method of electronic storage is 100% secure and reliable, and we cannot guarantee its absolute security.
Links to Other Sites
This service may contain links to other sites. If you click on a third-party link, you will be directed to that site. Note that these external sites are not operated by us. Therefore, we strongly advise you to review the Privacy Policy of these websites. We have no control over, do not endorse, and assume no responsibility for the content, privacy policies, or practices of any third-party sites or services.
Here is a list of the information we collect from you, either through our software or because you give it to us in some other way, and why it is necessary to collect it:
1. Business and personal information
This includes basic identification and contact information, such as your name and contact details and also includes all information given to us in the course of your business and ours, such as information you give us in your capacity as our client. We undertake to preserve the confidentiality of the information and of the terms of our relationship. It is not used for any other purpose. We expect you to reciprocate this policy.
This information is used:
1. to provide you with the services which you request;
2. for verifying your identity for security purposes;
3. for marketing our services and products;
4. information which does not identify any individual may be used in a general way by us or third parties, to provide class information, for example relating to demographics or usage of a particular page or service.
We keep information, which forms part of our business record for a minimum of six years. That is because we may need it in some way to support a claim or defence in court. That is also the period within which our tax collecting authorities may demand to know it.
2. Your domain name and e-mail address
This information is recognised by our servers and the pages that you visit are recorded. We shall not under any circumstances, divulge your e-mail address to any person who is not an employee or contractor of ours and who does not need to know, either generally or specifically. This information is used:
1. to correspond with you or deal with you as you expect;
2. in a collective way not referable to any particular individual, for the purpose of quality control and improvement of our site;
3. to send you news about the services to which you have signed up;
4. to tell you about other of our services or services of sister web sites.
3. Information you post on our software
Information you send to us by posting to a forum or blog or in your advertisement, is stored on our servers. We do not specifically use that information except to allow it to be read, but you will see in our terms and conditions that we reserve a right to use it in any way we decide.
4. Software usage information
We may use software embedded in our software (such as JavaScript) to collect information about pages you view and how you have reached them, what you do when you visit a page, the length of time you remain on the page, and how we perform in providing content to you. We do not presently associate such information with an identifiable person .
5. Third party advertising
Third parties may advertise on our web site. In doing so, those parties, their agents or other companies working for them may use technology that automatically collects your IP address when they send an advertisement that appears on our site to your browser. They may also use other technology such as cookies or JavaScript to personalise the content of, and to measure the performance of their adverts. We do not have control over these technologies or the data that these parties obtain. Accordingly, this privacy notice does not cover the information practices of these third parties.
6. Information we obtain from third parties
Although we do not disclose your personal information to any third party (except as set out in this notice), we do receive data which is indirectly made up from your personal information, from software services such as Google Analytics and others. No such information is identifiable to you.
7. Content you provide to us with a view to be used by third party
If you provide information to us with a view to it being read, copied, downloaded or used by other people, we accept no responsibility for what that third party may do with it. It is up to you to satisfy yourself about the privacy level of every person who might see your information.
8. Cookies
Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer's hard drive through your web browser when you visit any web site. They are widely used to make web sites work, or work more efficiently, as well as to provide information to the owners of the site.
Like all other users of cookies, we may request the return of information from your computer when your browser requests a web page from our server. Cookies enable our web server to identify you to us, and to track your actions and the pages you visit while you use our software.
The cookies we use may last for a single visit to our site (they are deleted from your computer when you close your browser), or may remain on your computer until you delete them or until a defined period of time has passed.
Although your browser software enables you to disable cookies, we recommend that you allow the use of cookies in order to take advantage of the features of our software that rely on their use. If you prevent their use, you will not be able to use all the functionality of our software. Here are the ways we use cookies:
1. to record whether you have accepted the use of cookies on our web site. This is solely to comply with the law. If you have chosen not to accept cookies, we will not use cookies for your visit, but unfortunately, our site will not work well for you.
2. to allow essential parts of our web site to operate for you.
3. to collect information about how visitors use our site. We use the information to improve your experience of our site and enable us to increase sales. This cookie collects information in an anonymous form, including the number of visitors to the site, where visitors have come to the site from, and the pages they visited.
9. Sending a message to our support system
When you send a message, we collect the data you have given to us in that message in order to obtain confirmation that you are entitled to receive the information and to provide to you the information you need. We record your request and our reply in order to increase the efficiency of our business / organisation.
10. Complaints
When we receive a complaint, we record all the information you have given to us. We use that information to resolve your complaint. If your complaint reasonably requires us to contact some other person, we may decide to give to that other person some of the information contained in your complaint. We do this as infrequently as possible, but it is a matter for our sole discretion as to whether we do give information, and, if we do, what that information is.
We may also compile statistics showing information obtained from this source to assess the level of service we provide, but not in a way that could identify you or any other person.
11. Job application and employment
If you send us information in connection with a job application, we may keep it for up to three years in case we decide to contact you at a later date.
12. Marketing information
With your permission we may pass your email address and name to selected associates whom we consider may provide services or products you would find useful. You may opt out of this service at any time by instructing us at info@awarenesscompany.co.za.
13. Affiliate information
This is information given to us by you in your capacity as an affiliate of us or a customer or client of ours. Such information is retained for business use only. We undertake to preserve the confidentiality of the information and of the terms of our relationship. It is not used for any other purpose. We expect any affiliate to agree to reciprocate this policy.
14. Use of site by children
We do not market to children, nor do we sell products or services for purchase by children. We may sell products and services for end use by children, but for purchase by adults. If you are under 18, you may use our site only with consent from a parent or guardian.
We also do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 18 years of age. In the instance where we discover that a child under 18 has provided us with personal information, we immediately delete this from our servers. If you are a parent or guardian and you are aware that your child has provided us with personal information, please contact us so that we will be able to perform the necessary actions.
Moreover, we have no way to control the use of an access device that you allow a child under age 18 to use, and therefore the device may be sending us information about the device's location and other factors. PLEASE EXERCISE CONTROL OF YOUR DEVICES TO PREVENT MINORS FROM GETTING INTO A SITUATION WHERE THEIR LOCATION MAY BE DISCLOSED TO US, OUR PROVIDERS, OR OTHER THIRD PARTIES.
15. Disclosure to Government and their agencies
We are subject to the law like everyone else. We may be required to provide information to legal authorities if they so request or if they have the proper authorisation such as a search warrant or court order.
16. Compliance with the law
This confidentiality policy has been compiled so as to comply with the laws of every jurisdiction in which we aim to do business. If you think it fails to satisfy the law of your country, we should like to hear from you, but ultimately it is your choice as to whether you wish to use our software.
17. Review or update personally identifiable information
At any time, you may review or update the personally identifiable information that we hold about you, by contacting us at info@awarenesscompany.co.za. To better safeguard your information, we will also take reasonable steps to verify your identity before granting access or making corrections to your information.
18. Changes to This Privacy Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. You are therefore advised to review this page periodically for any changes. We will notify you of any changes by posting the new Privacy Policy on this page.
This policy is effective as of 1 July 2021.
19. Contact Us
If you have any questions, complaints or suggestions about our policy and its terms and conditions, please do not hesitate to contact us at info@awarenesscompany.co.za.
If you wish us to remove personally identifiable information, you may likewise contact us at info@awarenesscompany.co.za. To better safeguard your information, we will also take reasonable steps to verify your identity before granting access or making corrections to your information.
You may request a copy of the data we hold about you or amend or delete that data by contacting us at info@awarenesscompany.co.za.
We undertake to, in such an instance, convey your request for amendment or deletion to all stakeholders we refer to above.
For all other inquiries or issues relating to the HYDRA software, please contact us at: info@awarenesscompany.co.za.