Welcome to our privacy policy at Virtual Partners Africa. This is our plan of action for protecting your privacy. We respect your privacy and take the protection of personal data very seriously. The purpose of this policy is to describe how we collect, store, use, and protect data that can be associated with you or another specific natural or juristic person and can be used to identify you or that person (personal data). This Privacy Policy was last updated on 13 March 2024.

PRIVACY POLICY, POPIA & GDPR

In a South African context, we adhere to compliance with the Protection of Personal Information Act. Additionally, we meet GDPR requirements for any international visitors.

PERSONAL DATA

Personal data includes:

Personal data includes: certain information that we collect automatically when you visit our website; certain information collected upon enquiry submission (see below); and optional information that you provide to us voluntarily (see below)

Common examples of the types of personal data which we may collect and process include your:

• identifying information – such as your name, date of birth, or identification number of any kind;
• contact information – such as your phone number or email address;
• address information – such as your physical or postal address;

Sensitive personal data

Depending on the services that you require, we may also collect sensitive personal data like your bank account details, company/CC/business registration name and number.

Deemed acceptance

By accepting this policy, you are deemed to have read, understood, accepted, and agreed to be bound by all of its terms.

Your obligations

You may only send us your own personal data or the personal data of another data subject where you have their permission to do so.

Changes

We may change the terms of this policy at any time by updating this web page. We will notify you of any changes by sending you an email detailing the changes that we have made and indicating the date that they were last updated.

Where are we collecting your data? 

Upon submitting an enquiry

Once you submit and enquiry on our website, you will no longer be anonymous to us. You will provide us with certain personal data.

This personal data may include:

• your name and surname;
• your email address;
• your telephone number;
• company name

We will use this personal data to fulfil your query, provide additional services and information to you as we reasonably think appropriate, and for any other purposes set out in this policy. The processing of your data is either based on your consent or in case the processing is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party, or in order to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contract.

When you order/do business with us

When you order services from us, you will be asked to provide us with additional information such as:

• your identification number (ID)
• your company name, company registration number, and VAT number; and
• your postal address or street address

Employment Information

Upon submitting information to Virtual Partners Africa  to join us as a Virtual Assistant we collect personal information as well as Background Data which includes the information you have provided to us in your curriculum vitae and any covering letter or on our application form, including Identity and Contact Data, employment history, a portfolio, and qualifications.  We may also collect, store and use the following types of more sensitive personal information (Sensitive Data): information about your health, including any medical condition, health and sickness records, and information about criminal convictions and offenses.  This information is removed from our servers and database after 1 year or upon your request for us to do so (which ever comes first).

From browser

We automatically receive and record Internet usage information on our server logs from your browser, such as your Internet Protocol address (IP address), browsing habits, click patterns, version of software installed, system type, screen resolutions, colour capabilities, plug-ins, language settings, cookie preferences, search engine keywords, JavaScript enablement, the content and pages that you access on the website, and the dates and times that you visit the website, paths taken, and time spent on sites and pages within the website (usage information).

Please note that other websites visited before entering our website might place personal data within your URL during a visit to it, and we have no control over such websites. Accordingly, a subsequent website that collects URL information may log some personal data.

Purpose for collection

We may use or process any services information, or optional information that you provide to us for the purposes that you indicated when you agreed to provide it to us.

Processing includes gathering your personal data, disclosing it, and combining it with other personal data. We generally collect and process your personal data for various purposes, including:

• services purposes – such as providing our services;
• marketing purposes – such as pursuing lawful related marketing activities;
• business purposes – such as internal audit, accounting, business planning, and joint ventures, disposals of business, or other proposed and actual transactions; and
• legal purposes – such as handling claims, complying with regulations, or pursuing good governance.

We may use your usage information for the purposes described above and to:

• remember your information so that you will not have to re-enter it during your visit or the next time you access the website; and
• monitor website usage metrics such as total number of visitors and pages accessed.

Consent to collection

We will obtain your consent to collect personal data:

• in accordance with applicable law;
• when you provide us with any enquiry information or optional information.

How do we use your personal information?

Our obligations

We may use your personal data to fulfil our obligations to you.

Messages and updates

We may send administrative messages and email updates to you about our service. In some cases, we may also send you primarily promotional messages. You can choose to opt-out of promotional messages.

Targeted content

While you are logged into the website, we may display targeted adverts and other relevant information based on your personal data. In a completely automated process, computers process the personal data and match it to adverts or related information. We never share personal data with any advertiser, unless you specifically provide us with your consent to do so. Advertisers receive a record of the total number of impressions and clicks for each advert. They do not receive any personal data. If you click on an advert, we may send a referring URL to the advertiser’s website identifying that a customer is visiting from the website. We do not send personal data to advertisers with the referring URL. Once you are on the advertiser’s website however, the advertiser is able to collect your personal data.

Disclosure

Sharing

We may share your personal data with:

• our goods suppliers or service providers under contract who help supply certain goods or help with parts of our business operations, including fraud prevention, bill collection, marketing, technology services (our contracts dictate that these goods suppliers or service providers only use your information in connection with the goods they supply or services they perform for us and not for their own benefit);
• credit bureaus to report account information, as permitted by law;
• banking partners as required by credit card association rules for inclusion on their list of terminated merchants (in the event that you utilize the services to receive payments and you meet their criteria); and
• other third parties who provide us with relevant services where appropriate.

Regulators

We may disclose your personal data as required by law or governmental audit.

Law enforcement

We may disclose personal data if required:

• by a subpoena or court order;
• to comply with any law;
• to protect the safety of any individual or the general public; and
• to prevent violation of our terms of service.

No selling

We will not sell personal data. No personal data will be disclosed to anyone except as provided in this privacy policy.

Marketing purposes

We may disclose aggregate statistics (information about the customer population in general terms) about the personal data to advertisers or business partners.

Employees

We may need to disclose personal data to our employees that require the personal data to do their jobs. These include our responsible management, human resources, accounting, audit, compliance, information technology, or other personnel. Any of our employees or personnel that handle your personal data will have signed non-disclosure and confidentiality agreements.

Unauthorised disclosure

We cannot accept any liability whatsoever for unauthorised or unlawful disclosure of your personal data by third parties who are not subject to our control.

Security

We take the security of personal data very seriously and always do our best to comply with applicable data protection laws. We will implement and maintain appropriate technical and organizational measures to protect the security and confidentiality of the personal data. We host on a secure server environment that uses a firewall and other advanced security measures to prevent interference or access from outside intruders. All personal data is securely stored in our customer database. We authorize access to personal data only for those employees who require it to fulfil their job responsibilities. We implement disaster recovery procedures where appropriate.

Accurate and up to date

We will try to keep the personal data we collect as accurate, complete and up to date as is necessary for the purposes defined in this policy. You are able to review or update any personal data that we hold on you by emailing us. Please note that in order to better protect you and safeguard your personal data, we take steps to verify your identity before granting you access to your account or making any corrections to your personal data. Throughout your interaction with us you retain the right to rectify personal data that is incorrect or inaccurate.

Data Shelf Life 

All the information that we process has a shelf life that is available upon request. 

This means that we “clean” our database on a regular basis by removing users who have not interacted with us over a certain period. 

In this instance, the user will be unsubscribed however their info may still be stored securely on our system for historical purposes. 

Data breaches

We will notify our customers of any confirmed data breaches that has occurred. It is our customers’ responsibility to notify relevant supervisory authority and any affected data subjects of the data breach.

Limitation

We are not responsible for, give no warranties, nor make any representations in respect of the privacy policies or practices of linked or any third-party websites.

GDPR REGULATIONS

The processing of your data is either based on your consent or in case the processing is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party, or in order to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contract, cf. GDPR art. 6(1)(a)-(b).

If you are a resident of the EEA, you have the following data protection rights:

• If you wish to access, correct, update, or request deletion of your personal information, you can do so at any time by emailing info@virtualpartners.co.za.
• In addition, you can object to the processing of your personal information, ask us to restrict the processing of your personal information or request portability of your personal information.
• You have the right to opt-out of marketing communications we send you at any time. You can exercise this right by clicking on the “unsubscribe” or “opt-out” link in the marketing emails we send you. To opt-out of other forms of marketing, please contact us by emailing info@virtualpartners.co.za.
• Similarly, if we have collected and process your personal information with your consent, then you can withdraw your consent at any time.  Withdrawing your consent will not affect the lawfulness of any processing we conducted prior to your withdrawal, nor will it affect the processing of your personal information conducted in reliance on lawful processing grounds other than consent.
• You have the right to complain to a data protection authority about our collection and use of your personal information. For more information, please contact your local data protection authority.

We respond to all requests we receive from individuals wishing to exercise their data protection rights in accordance with applicable data protection laws.

During the period of retention, we will continue to abide by our non-disclosure obligations and will not share or sell your personal data.

We may retain your personal data in physical or electronic records at our discretion.

Transfer to another country

We may transmit or transfer personal data outside of the country in which it was collected to a foreign country and process it in that country. Personal data may be stored on servers located outside the country in which it was collected. You consent to us processing your personal data in a foreign country whose laws regarding processing of personal data may be less stringent.

Updating or removing

You may choose to correct or update the personal data you have submitted to us by contacting us via email or via the website.

You are entitled to a right to be forgotten. We will delete any personal data that you don’t want us to have. If you are a data subject of the Administrator or one of our customers (who is the data controller), then you must submit your request to the relevant data controller who will then delete your personal data.

Restriction of processing

You may request that we restrict the use of your personal data. When we restrict your personal data, we still have the right to store it but not use it.

Data portability

If you should wish to transfer your data from us to another data controller we will facilitate this transfer. We will pass on all of our personal data to the data controller.

If you are a data subject of the Administrator or one of our customers (who is the data controller), then you must submit your request for your personal data to the relevant data controller, who will then export your personal data.

INFORMATION OFFICER

If you need to contact our Information Officer for any reason please send an email to info@virtualpartners.co.za.