Privacy Policy

UPDATED PRIVACY POLICY (AS AT 13 MAY 2023)

1. Introduction

1.1. This Privacy Policy forms part of our standard Terms & Conditions of Service and applies to all registered or non-registered Users of our Services (as defined in our standard Terms & Conditions of Service) including visitors to our website (User, you or your). All references herein to us, our or we are to SMSPortal (Pty) Ltd.

1.2. Your privacy is important to us. The purpose of this Privacy Policy is to help you understand how we collect, use, store and share personal data about you. Personal data means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified and does not include anonymous data.

1.3. If you do not agree with this Policy, then you may not use this website or our Services and are required to cease doing so immediately.

1.4. PLEASE NOTE that where you use our Services to communicate messages to third parties such as your customers (message recipients), we are the data processor and you are the data controller. This means that you determine the purpose and means of the processing of information about message recipients. It is your responsibility to ensure that message recipients’ data that is uploaded to our platform, along with the content of the messages, is compliant with all applicable local and international data protection laws and regulations, including but not limited to the General Data Protection Regulation Directive (GDPR) and South Africa’s Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA). Please refer to our Standard Terms of Service for further details.

2. The personal data we collect about you and where we get it from

2.1. We collect relevant and minimal personal data about you for the purpose of managing your affairs with us.

2.2. We collect information about you when you register for an account, create or modify your profile on our website, purchase Services from us, raise a query with our support team, contact us over the phone, by email or via live chat, sign up to any of our mailing lists, request marketing to be sent to you, take part in any surveys or give us some feedback.

2.3. We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you, which we have grouped together as follows:

2.3.1. Contact details – your name, title, billing address, delivery address, email address and telephone numbers;
2.3.2. Payment information* – your bank account and branch number;
2.3.3. Purchase history –  this includes details about the Services you have purchased from us;
2.3.4. Marketing preferences – this includes your preferences in receiving marketing from us and your communication preferences;
2.3.5. Browser information – this includes information from your browser, computer, or mobile device, which provide us with technical information when you access or use our website or Services, including device and network information, cookies and analytics information;
2.3.6. Customer service history – this includes interactions with us over the phone, via the website or live chat **.

* Note that all credit card and electronic funds transfer payment processes are re-directed to and managed directly by a third party payment service provider. We do not hold your credit card details.

** While on live chat, our support team can see your public internet protocol (IP) address and location.

3. How we process your personal data

3.1. We will only process your personal data in a manner that is adequate, relevant and not excessive in the context of the purpose for which it is processed. That purpose will be compatible with that for which it was collected, unless you have consented to an alternative purpose in writing or we are permitted by POPI or in terms of national legislation of general application.

3.2. Most commonly, we will use your personal data in the following circumstances:

3.2.1. to provide you with access to this website;
3.2.2 to present certain material set out on the website to you;
3.2.3. where we need to perform the contract we are about to enter into or have entered into with you, including to process transactions with you, authenticate you when you log in, provide customer support, to operate and maintain the Services and to protect the safety and security of the Services;
3.2.4. to protect our Legitimate Interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests (Legitimate Interest means the interest of our business in conducting and managing our business to enable us to give you the best service and the best and most secure experience;
3.2.5. where we need to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation; and
3.2.6. where you have given us your consent to do so for a specific purpose.
3.2.7. to communicate with you as necessary;
3.2.8. to improve the website; and
3.2.9. to process as described elsewhere in this clause.

Please refer to Appendix 1 to this Privacy Policy for more detail about what we do with your personal data and why.

3.3. You will only receive marketing communications from us if you have requested the same, purchased Services from us or told us that we can send them to you. You can tell us that you want to stop receiving marketing communications from us at any time.

3.4. We undertake that your information will be processed in accordance with applicable law and that we will only process the information in a manner consistent with allowing use of this website or our Services and will process it to the minimum extent necessary.

4. Cookies

4.1. We may utilise temporary or session cookies. A cookie is a small text file that is stored on your device (computer, mobile phone, tablet or other) by a website’s server. Each cookie is unique to your web browser and contains completely anonymous information such as a unique identifier and the website name. This allows a website to remember things like your personal preferences, products you prefer or what’s in your shopping basket.

4.2. We utilise first and third-party cookies. This enables it to improve users’ experience on the website through various means such as storing preferences (like keeping a user logged in) or determining aggregate usage behaviour (time on site, number of pages viewed etc.) through web analytics tools like Google Analytics and to provide more relevant display advertising to users who have visited the website, using third party tools such as the Google Analytics Remarketing.

4.3. This allows us to track your use of this website.

4.4. Cookies by themselves will not be used to personally identify users but we may use them to compile de-identified statistics relating to use of or feedback on the performance of this website.

4.5. The following classes of information may be collected in respect of Users who have enabled cookies:

• The browser software used;
• IP address;
• Date and time of activities while visiting the website;
• URLs of internal pages visited; and
• referring websites, search engines and the like.

4.6. We are committed to providing you choices to manage your privacy and sharing.

4.7. If you do not wish cookies to be employed to customize your interaction with this website, it is possible to alter the manner in which your browser handles cookies. Please note that, if this is done, certain services on this website may not be available. Users can also opt out of the Google Display Network using the Ads Preferences Manager. Because some of our website’s features utilise cookies, we recommend that users do not block them.

4.8. You can opt out of a third party website’s use of cookies by visiting the Network Advertising Initiative opt-out page at http://www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp.

5. Keeping your personal data secure

5.1. In addition to our local environment, we use Teraco as our data centre service providers in South Africa to host and store the information we collect on our private cloud infrastructure.

5.2. We have put in place appropriate reasonable technical, organisational and security measures to secure your personal data. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, service providers and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

5.3. We will secure the integrity and confidentiality of personal data in our possession or under our control by taking appropriate, reasonable technical and organisational measures to prevent:

5.3.1. loss of, damage to or unauthorised destruction of personal data; and
5.3.2. unlawful access to or processing of personal data.

5.4. We will take reasonable measures to:

5.4.1. identify all reasonably foreseeable internal and external risks to personal data in our possession or under our control;
5.4.2. establish and maintain appropriate safeguards against the risks identified;
5.4.3. regularly verify that the safeguards are effectively implemented; and
5.4.4. ensure that the safeguards are continually updated in response to new risks or deficiencies in previously implemented safeguards.

5.5. While we implement safeguards designed to protect your information, no security system is impenetrable and due to the inherent nature of the Internet, we cannot guarantee that data, during transmission through the Internet or while stored on our systems is absolutely safe from intrusion by others. Transmitting personal data is done at your own risk. We strongly recommend that you take the necessary steps and implement your own safeguards to prevent interception of data transmitted over networks and to restrict access to databases and other storage points used.

5.6. We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.

6. How we share the personal data we hold about you

6.1. We do not sell any of your personal data to any third party. We will not disclose any personal data relating to you to any third party unless your prior written agreement is obtained, or we are required to do so by law.

6.2. We do, however, share and/or store your information with our third party hosting, backup, storage and/or virtual infrastructure service provider(s) who help us run our business. Some of these third parties may be situated outside of your country and you consent to your personal data (and that of any data subjects you provide to us) being transferred cross-border so that we can provide the Services to you. In this regard, we only engage third party service providers who have security and privacy policies and procedures providing at least the same level of protection as we do ourselves. You warrant that you have all necessary permissions to give us the above consent.

6.3. We do not allow our third party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

6.4. In exceptional circumstances we may share information about you with a third party if we believe that sharing is reasonably necessary to:

6.4.1. comply with any applicable law, regulation, legal process or government request;
6.4.2. enforce our agreements, policies and terms of service;
6.4.3. protect the security and/or integrity of our Services;
6.4.4. protect ourselves, our customers and/or the public from harm or illegal activities; or
6.4.5. respond to an emergency which we believe in good faith requires us to disclose information to assist in preventing the death or serious bodily injury of any person.

6.5. We also share information about you with third parties when you give us consent to do so, for example, when we display personal testimonials of satisfied customers on our public website.

6.6. We may share or transfer information we collect under this Privacy Policy in connection with any merger, sale of company assets, financing or acquisition of all or a portion of our business to another company, in which event you will be notified via email of the transaction as well as any choices you may have regarding your information.

6.7. Please note that our website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications for example, our payment service provider’s gateway. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy policy of every website you visit.

6.8. Certain communications to be intercepted and monitored while travelling over telecommunication networks (for system health and forensic reasons). Subject to the provisions of the Regulation of Interception of Communications Act 70 of 2002 (RIC Act), you consent to the interception and monitoring of all communications sent by the you to us. You acknowledge and agree that such consent meets the “writing” requirement as detailed in the Electronic Communications and Transaction Act 25 of 2002 and the RIC Act.

7. How long do we keep your personal data?

7.1. Generally, we will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purpose for which we collected it. We will destroy or delete any personal data that is no longer needed by it for the purpose it was initially collected, or subsequently processed.

7.2. We retain your account information for as long as your account is active and a reasonable period thereafter in case you decide to re-activate the Services. If your account is deactivated or disabled, some of your information and the content you have provided will remain in order that your team members or other users can make full of the Services.

7.3. We also retain some of your information as necessary to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations, to resolve disputes, to enforce our agreements, to support business and for the purposes of satisfying any accounting or reporting requirements.

7.4. In some circumstances, you can ask us to delete your personal data (see Section 8 below). We will delete all personal data, insofar as it relates to you, when it receives a written instruction from you to do so unless we are obliged by law or under our obligations to you to retain such information.

7.5. In some circumstances, and as permitted by POPIA, we may anonymise your personal data (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for research or statistical purposes in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you. No information contained in the profiles or statistics will be able to be linked to any specific User.

8. Accessing and controlling your personal data

8.1. You have the right to:

8.1.1. Request access to your personal data. This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
8.1.2. Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.
8.1.3. Request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.
8.1.4. Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a Legitimate Interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms.
8.1.5. Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios: (a) if you want us to establish the data’s accuracy; (b) where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it; (c) where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or (d) you have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.
8.1.6. Request the transfer (portability) of your personal data to you or to a third party in a structured, common and machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you and it must not prejudice the rights and freedoms of others, for example, the right to privacy, the right to access and information.
8.1.7. Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.

8.2. If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above or if you have any questions or a complaint, please contact us. We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. We reserve the right to charge you a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive.

8.3. Access and update your information. Our Services and related documentation give you the ability to access and update certain information about you from within the Service for example your profile information.

8.4. Deactivate your account. If you no longer wish to use our Services, you or your administrator may be able to deactivate your Services account via the account settings. Note that deactivating your account does not however delete your information.

8.5. Opt out of communications. You may opt out of receiving promotional communications from us by using the unsubscribe link within each email, updating your email preferences within your Service account settings menu, or by contacting us as provided below to have your contact information removed from our promotional email list or registration database.  Even after you opt out from receiving promotional messages from us, you will continue to receive transactional messages from us regarding our Services. You can opt out of some notification messages in your account settings.

9. Transfer of Personal Data

9.1. Our website is operated from the Republic of South Africa (“RSA”). If you are not located here, and choose to use the website, or provide information to us, you acknowledge and understand that your information will be transferred, processed and stored in the RSA, as it is necessary, and the RSA’s privacy laws may not be as protective as those in your jurisdiction.

9.2. If you are a resident of the European Union (“EU”), we are the controller of your personal data for the purposes of EU data protection law.

9.3. We will not transfer your personal data or any portion of it to any third party for any reason without your prior written consent, except to the extent that we use third party service providers to host our database, as detailed in clause 5.

9.4. We may use hosting or cloud services to operate this website and store its data which are not located in South Africa. If we do so, we will ensure that the level of protection given to your personal data is at least as good as that provided for under South African law, either by means of a binding contract with the service provider, or by using a service provider located in a country with privacy laws of similar or stronger effect.

10. Children

10.1. Our website is not intended for children under the age of 18 and we don’t knowingly Our website is not intended for children under the age of 18 and we don’t knowingly process any personal data relating to a person under the age of 18 years unless we have obtained consent from that person’s parent or legal guardian. If this website is being accessed by the parent or guardian of a child under the age of 18 years, and personal data pertaining to that child is being provided by the parent or guardian, then they hereby expressly consent to us processing such information according to the further provisions of this Privacy Policy.

11. Consent

11.1. You hereby consent to the processing of your personal data in terms of the provisions of this Privacy Policy.

11.2. You acknowledge and agree that such consent has been given voluntarily after you have read and understood the provisions of this Privacy Policy, in particular, regarding the following:

11.2.1 the types of personal data to be processed, including specifically special personal data;
11.2.2. the specific processing activities to be undertaken;
11.2.3. the specific purpose/s for such processing; and
11.2.4. the possible consequences for you that may arise from such processing.

11.3. Should you wish to withdraw any consent previously given, you must notify our information officer in writing.

12. Changes to this Privacy Policy

12.1. We may change this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect how we are processing your personal data. We will post any Privacy Policy changes on this page and, if the changes are significant, we will provide a more prominent notice by adding a notice on the Services homepages, login screens, or by sending you an email notification.

12.2. Continued use of the website or our Services subsequent to any amendments having been made constitutes your acceptance of the Privacy Policy as amended.

13. Contact us

• Questions and comments regarding this Privacy Policy are always welcomed, so if you have questions or concerns about how your information is handled or would like to exercise any of your legal rights, please contact us at the details below
• Website: smsportal.com
• Email: info@smsportal.com
• Telephone: 0861 112 021

APPENDIX 1 – HOW WE USE YOUR PERSONAL DATA