POPIA Privacy Notice

1. Who we are

Digital Optimal Solutions (Pty) Ltd (registration number 2020/606731/07) is the responsible party for the personal information described in this notice. We operate the website digioptsolutions.co.za and provide electronic repair, website and e-commerce development, and domain hosting and email services.

2. What personal information we collect

We collect only what we need to deliver the service you have asked for. We do not require you to give us more than that.

3. Why we process it

• To respond to enquiries — answering your questions and preparing quotations.
• To manage repair bookings — logging the job, allocating a reference number, assessing the device, quoting, and keeping you updated.
• To deliver services — building and maintaining websites, administering domains, mailboxes and hosting.
• To arrange collection or delivery — where you have asked us to collect a device from you.
• To invoice and keep records — meeting our accounting and tax obligations.
• To keep the site secure — preventing spam and automated abuse of our forms.
• To improve the website — understanding in aggregate how the site is used.

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not use it for automated decision-making or profiling.

4. Our lawful basis for processing

Under section 11 of POPIA we rely on the following justifications:

• Consent — where you tick the consent box on the booking form, or otherwise agree to us contacting you.
• Performance of a contract — processing necessary to carry out a repair, build a website, or run your hosting.
• Legal obligation — retaining invoices and related records as required by tax and company law.
• Legitimate interests — protecting our website from abuse, and maintaining ordinary business records, balanced against your privacy.

Where we rely on consent, you may withdraw it at any time by contacting us. Withdrawing consent does not affect processing carried out before the withdrawal, and we may still need to retain certain records to meet a legal obligation.

5. Who we share it with

We share personal information only where it is necessary, and only with parties that are required to protect it. These may include:

• Hosting and email providers that operate the infrastructure behind our website and your services.
• Courier and logistics partners, where a device is being collected from or returned to you.
• Parts suppliers and specialist repairers, where a specific component or sub-repair is needed — limited to the device details required.
• Google, in respect of Analytics and reCAPTCHA, as described in section 9.
• Meta Platforms, where you choose to contact us on WhatsApp — the conversation is carried on their service and governed by the WhatsApp Privacy Policy. Using WhatsApp is entirely optional; email and telephone reach us just as well.
• Our accountants and professional advisers, where required for compliance.
• Law enforcement or regulators, where we are legally obliged to disclose.

We do not give any third party permission to use your information for their own marketing.

6. How long we keep it

We keep personal information only as long as necessary for the purpose it was collected for, unless a longer period is required by law:

• General enquiries that do not become jobs — kept for up to 12 months, then deleted.
• Repair bookings and job records — kept for the duration of the repair and for a reasonable period afterwards to support warranty and follow-up queries.
• Invoices and financial records — retained for the period required by South African tax and company legislation.
• Hosting and domain client records — kept for as long as the service is active, and for a limited period after it ends.
• Website analytics — retained according to the Google Analytics retention setting on our property.

7. How we protect it

We take appropriate, reasonable technical and organisational measures to prevent loss of, damage to, or unauthorised access to personal information, including:

• HTTPS encryption across the whole website, with HTTP traffic redirected to HTTPS.
• Security headers that guard against clickjacking, MIME-sniffing and cross-site scripting.
• Server-side validation of every form submission, and reCAPTCHA to block automated abuse.
• Access to enquiry and booking mailboxes restricted to the people who need it.
• Credentials and API secrets kept outside the public web root.

No system can be guaranteed completely secure. If a security compromise affects your personal information, we will notify you and the Information Regulator as required by section 22 of POPIA.

8. Your rights as a data subject

Under POPIA you have the right to:

• Be told whether we hold personal information about you, and to request a copy of it.
• Ask us to correct or update information that is inaccurate, irrelevant, misleading or out of date.
• Ask us to delete or destroy information we no longer have a lawful reason to keep.
• Object to processing that we base on legitimate interests, on reasonable grounds.
• Withdraw consent that you previously gave us.
• Not be subjected to unsolicited direct marketing.
• Complain to the Information Regulator — see section 12.

To exercise any of these, email info@digioptsolutions.co.za. We may need to verify your identity before we act, so that we do not disclose your information to someone else. We will respond within a reasonable time. Formal access requests under the Promotion of Access to Information Act are made on Form 2 and may attract the prescribed fee.

9. Cookies and analytics

This website uses cookies and similar technologies for two purposes:

• Google Analytics — measures how visitors find and use the site so we can improve it. It records pages viewed, approximate location, device and browser type. We do not use it to identify you personally.
• Google reCAPTCHA — protects our contact and booking forms from automated abuse. It is subject to the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.

You can block or delete cookies through your browser settings. Doing so will not stop you from using the site, though form protection may behave differently. You can also install the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on.

10. Children

Our services are aimed at businesses and adults. We do not knowingly collect personal information about a child without the consent of a competent person. If you believe we hold information about a child, contact us and we will delete it.

11. Cross-border transfers

Some of the service providers we rely on — including Google, and certain hosting and email platforms — process data on servers outside South Africa. Where personal information is transferred across borders, we take reasonable steps to ensure the recipient is subject to laws, binding rules or agreements that provide an adequate level of protection, as required by section 72 of POPIA.

12. Complaints

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your personal information, please contact us first — most issues are resolved quickly. If you are not satisfied with our response, you have the right to complain to the Information Regulator.

13. Changes to this notice

We may update this notice from time to time to reflect changes in our services or in the law. The date at the top of this page shows when it was last revised. Where a change materially affects how we use your personal information, we will take reasonable steps to bring it to your attention.