Privacy policy

This policy explains what information this website collects, why it is collected, and what rights you have over it. It is written to meet the requirements of the Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013 (POPIA).

Who is responsible

This website is operated as an independent directory of South Africa’s national sphere of government. It is the responsible party for the personal information described here. To exercise any right under this policy, or to ask a question about it, use the contact page.

What is collected

Information you give us

If you email us, we receive your email address and whatever you choose to put in the message. We use it only to respond to you and to act on what you have raised, such as a correction.

Information collected automatically

Like most websites, this site’s servers record technical information when you visit, including your IP address, browser type and version, the pages you request, and the time of the request. This is used to operate the site securely and to diagnose faults.

Information about the people listed in the directory

The directory publishes the names and official roles of people who hold public office or senior positions in public entities, together with the official contact details of those entities. This is published because it is information about the conduct of public bodies, and it is drawn from those bodies’ own published material. It does not include personal contact details, home addresses or any private information.

Cookies and advertising

This site uses cookies. A cookie is a small file placed on your device by a website.

Advertising cookies

This site displays advertising served by Google. Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on your prior visits to this website and other websites.

Google’s use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to you based on your visit to this and other sites on the internet. You may opt out of personalised advertising by visiting Google Ads Settings. You can also opt out of a third-party vendor’s use of cookies for personalised advertising at aboutads.info.

Third-party vendors and ad networks other than Google may also serve advertising on this site and may use their own cookies to do so.

Managing cookies

You can set your browser to refuse cookies or to alert you when one is set. Refusing cookies will not prevent you from using the directory: search, entity pages and all site information remain fully available.

Analytics

We use aggregate traffic measurement to understand which parts of the directory are used, so that we can improve them. This tells us how many people visited a page, not who they are.

Who we share information with

We do not sell personal information, and we do not share it with third parties for their own marketing. Information is disclosed only where it is necessary to operate the site, such as to our hosting provider, or where the law requires it.

Advertising and analytics providers process information under their own policies, linked above.

How long information is kept

Correspondence is kept for as long as it is needed to deal with the matter raised, and thereafter for a reasonable period as a record of corrections made. Server logs are kept for a short period for security and diagnostic purposes.

Security

This site is served over an encrypted connection. We take reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect information against loss, unauthorised access and misuse. No system is perfectly secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

Your rights

Under POPIA you have the right to:

• Ask what personal information about you we hold
• Ask us to correct information that is inaccurate, irrelevant, excessive, out of date, incomplete, misleading or unlawfully obtained
• Ask us to delete information we are no longer entitled to keep
• Object to the processing of your personal information
• Complain to the Information Regulator

To exercise any of these, use the contact page. If you wish to complain to the regulator, the Information Regulator of South Africa can be reached through its own website.

If you are named in the directory as the holder of a public office and believe the entry is inaccurate, the fastest route is the corrections page.

Children

This site is a reference work about public institutions and is not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children.

External links

Entity pages link to the websites of the bodies listed. Those sites are not under our control and have their own privacy policies. This policy applies only to this website.

Changes

This policy may be updated. The date at the top of this page shows when it was last changed.