Website privacy policy

When you need a website privacy policy

Website owners, regardless of whether or not they are trading from it, are highly likely to collect information including personal information about their customers and website visitors (such as contact details or contact information) in some way, even if they don’t use that information.

Informing your visitors and customers (and other third parties) about such personal information you collect about them and how you process personal information is a requirement under the Protection of Personal Information Act 2013 (also called "POPI" and is the counter part of the European General Data Protection Regulation).

A common example of personal information collection that is covered by law is anonymous visitor tracking.

If you use Google Analytics, weblogs or any similar software, by law you are required to disclose it to your website visitors and get consent before using it (and also users to later withdraw their consent). So to ensure that the consent is "informed", it is best done using a website privacy policy that is published clearly, such as on the website footer.

About this website privacy policy

A privacy policy is a simple way to comply the law, but a good privacy policy goes further.

This is a model website privacy policy. It is written in plain language that is visitor-friendly. We have provided a large menu of paragraphs so that you can easily tailor the policy to suit the exact structure of your business and website.

Although this legal document cannot magically absolve you from risk of personal data mismanagement or unauthorized access, it is a giant first step.

It is prime evidence to everyone with whom you deal that you take confidentiality seriously. That can help increase the trust that visitors and customers have in your business and boost their confidence in using your services or buying from you.

The law in this website privacy policy

This website privacy policy template is drafted to ensure compliance with the South African data protection and privacy laws including the Protection of Personal Information Act 2013 and and Promotion of Access to Information Act 2000.

It also up to date with the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 2002.

Note: having a privacy policy is just part of the requirements for compliance with the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 2002.

Privacy policy features and contents

Your privacy policy should reflect the way in which your organisation collects and processes data (even if you don't use it). This will change between organisations enough to make each privacy policy unique, but with common elements that can be covered with standardised statements. In short, you will need to edit your privacy policy to reflect how your website and organisation operates, but we have done much of the legwork for you to make this an easy process.

There are 29 paragraphs in the document. In places we have provided a number of possibilities, where you choose the most appropriate from the menu and delete the others. In other places, we have provided ideas and the most common scenarios, but the policy may require a little customisation to fully reflect your business.

The policy is drawn around compliance with the applicable laws

• Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 2002;
• Protection of Personal Information Act No. 4 of 2013 (“POPI”)
• Promotion of Access to Information Act, 2000

The contents of the document cover:

• categorisation of different types of personal information and how you use them;
• how you collect, use and store financial information;
• personal information security and personal data retention;
• fraud prevention;
• cookies;
• collection of personal information by other means (such as telephone calls and e-mails);
• complaints;
• compliance with the law and disclosure to government;
• processing of data outside South Africa;
• review, removal and update of collected data;
• third party advertising;
• the use of the site by children.

You may also need a website terms and conditions for your website. We also offer legal templates for website terms and conditions suitable for all types of website, from an online store, to a technical web-based service, to a news site that has an advertising revenue model.