PRIVACY POLICY

INTRODUCTION

1. People Opposing Women Abuse (POWA), (its subsidiaries, holding company or any company which is a subsidiary of any such holding Company) is a non-governmental women’s rights organisation incorporated in South Africa. We provide free counselling, sheltering, skills development opportunities, legal services as well as public awareness and education to assist abused women.
2. At POWA we respect your privacy and are committed to protecting your personal information.
3. This Privacy Notice sets out how we receive, collect, use, store, process and delete the personal information we receive from you in terms of the Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013 and all other applicable data protection laws and regulations (“Data Protection Laws”)
4. Personal information” means information relating to an identifiable, living, natural person or, where applicable, an identifiable, existing juristic person and/or personal information as defined in the relevant Data Protection Laws Reference to “personal information” in this privacy notice includes “special personal information” such as race or ethnic origin.
5. This Privacy Notice applies every time we collect your personal information, you enquire and/or use our services or products.

INFORMATION WE COLLECT

The type of information we collect will depend on the circumstances and the donations/funds offered, and/or service you are using. We will collect information relating to you and/or your activities on the POWA site and use of our services in the following ways: 

1. Information relating to your use of the website We collect information about how you use our website. This includes information relating to the pages you visit on our website, the services or information you search for and the links and content you choose to access. We may also use the personal information you provide through your use of our website to provide you with relevant content and to inform our marketing strategy.
2. Technical data We collect information about the device(s) you use to access our site. This includes collecting unique mobile device ID or the internet protocol (IP) address online identifiers, which are numbers that can uniquely identify a specific computer or other network device on the internet. This information is linked to a cookie ID, which we receive and process.
3. Contact data We collect contact details when you sign-up to receive email alerts, attend one of our events, download our content, subscribe to our newsletters or where you ask us to respond to a query you have. The personal information we collect includes your name, email address, job title, and location.
4. Marketing and communications data We collect information about your preferences in receiving marketing information from us and your communication preference.
5. Children We do not actively seek to collect information about children aged 18 or under. If you have any concerns about your child’s privacy in relation to our services, or if you believe that your child may have entered personal information onto our website, please contact us at [enter email address]. We will delete such information from our records within a reasonable time.

HOW WE USE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

Except where required by law, we use the Personal Information you provide for the following purposes: 

• to deliver the specific information or services you have requested;
• to enable the download of our content;
• send you newsletters and information relating to our services;
• respond to your requests and feedback; and 
• analyse and/or improve our services. 

Under Data Protection Laws, we are required to advise you on the legal basis for processing your personal information. For the most part, the processing of your personal information is based either on (a) our legitimate interests related to us processing payment for the donations given and/or providing you services you have requested or otherwise your customer relationship with us, or (b) your consent, where requested.

HOW LONG WE WILL KEEP YOUR INFORMATION 

We will keep your personal information for as long as is necessary for the relevant service, in accordance with our legal obligations. After this time, your personal information will either be securely deleted or anonymised so that it can be used for analytical purposes. You may request further information via the contact details given in this Privacy Notice.

HOW WE SECURE YOUR INFORMATION

We maintain appropriate organisational and technological safeguards to help protect against unauthorised use, access to or accidental loss, alteration or destruction of personal information. Where we use third parties, we also seek to ensure that they do the same.

INFORMATION SHARING AND DISCLOSURE

We may use several third parties, such as CCWC, to perform certain business functions on our behalf, such as facilitating payment processes, sending our newsletters and hosting our online services and customer relationship management. We will only disclose the information necessary to enable these third parties to perform their services. Our service providers are contracted to comply with our instructions, and we require that they do not use your personal information for their own business purposes.

Where required or permitted by applicable Data Protection Laws, personal information may be provided to others, such as regulator and law enforcement agencies, for example in response to a court order or a subpoena, or in response to a law enforcement agency’s request, or where we believe it is necessary to investigate, prevent or take action regarding illegal activities, and as otherwise required by law.

YOUR RIGHTS

• Object to our processing of your personal information where we are relying on legitimate interest (or those of a third-party), and you want to object to processing on this ground, as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have a right to object where we are processing your personal information for the purposes of direct marketing. You can object at any time, and we shall stop processing the information you have objected to, unless we can show compelling legitimate grounds to continue that processing. 
• Access your personal information. If you make this kind of request and we hold personal information about you. We are required to provide you with information on it, including a description and copy of the personal information and why we are processing it. We will require you to prove your identity before granting access to your personal information. We will process your request within the timeframe required under the relevant law.
• Request the transfer of your personal information. We will provide to you or a third party you have chosen, your personal information in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Please note, this right applies to the personal information you have provided to us; and if we use your personal information on the basis of consent or where we used the information to perform a contract with you. 
• Request erasure (deletion) of your personal information.  You have a right to ask us to delete or remove your information where you have successfully exercised your right to object (see above), or where we are required to erase your personal information to comply with the law. Please note, we may be required to retain certain information by law and/or for our own legitimate business purpose. But when we do so, we will inform you.
• Request correction or updating of your personal information. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected. 
• Request the restriction of our processing of your personal information in some situations. If you request this, we can continue to store your personal information but are restricted from processing it while the restriction is in place.
• Withdraw your consent. Where you have provided your consent to our processing of your personal information you can withdraw your consent at any time. If you do withdraw consent, that will not affect the lawfulness of what we have done with your personal information before you withdrew consent.
• Make a Complaint. We will do our best to resolve any complaint. However, if you feel we have not resolved your complaint, you have a right to make a complaint to your local data protection authority.

OUR RESPONSIBILITY FOR WEBSITE LINKS

This Privacy Notice is limited to the personal information collected by POWA. We do provide links within this site to other websites, including social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. If you follow these links, you should use these sites in conjunction with their applicable user and privacy notices as their data practices fall outside the scope of this Privacy Notice. Further, we can have no responsibility for or control over the information collected by any third-party website and we cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you may provide on such websites.

UPDATES

This Privacy Notice may be updated from time to time to reflect changes in law, best practice or a change in our practices regarding the treatment of personal information.  The date of the most recent revision will appear at the top of this page. If you do not agree to the changes, please do not continue to use our services and please refrain from sharing your personal information with us. You should check this notice frequently for updates.

CONTACT US

If you have any questions about this Privacy Notice, our approach to privacy or you would like to exercise any of the rights mentioned in this Privacy Notice you can contact our Data Protection Officer in any of the following ways:

Email:info@powa.co.za

COOKIES NOTICE

How we deploy “cookies”

Cookies are small packets of information stored by your web browser when you visit certain websites, including our website. Cookies are generally used by websites to improve your user experience by enabling that website to ‘remember’ you, either strictly for the duration of your visit (using a “Session” cookie which is erased when you close your browser) or for repeat visits (using a “Permanent” cookie).

Please be advised that in some countries data such as cookie IDs and IP-/MAC- addresses are personal information. To the extent we process such data that is considered personal information, this will be done in accordance with our Privacy Notice.

Our site uses the following types of cookies:

1. Strictly Necessary Cookies These cookies are necessary for the website to function and to secure seamless payment processing, to enable features like user authentication and fraud prevention. These cookies cannot be switched off in our systems. They are usually only set in response to actions made by you which amount to a request for services, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in or filling in forms. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not then work. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable information.
2. Authentication Cookies These cookies assist with the verification of the identity of users who have logged in. They keep users signed in as they move through the payment process. These cookies are essential to protect the identity and banking details of the users.
3. Security Cookies Security cookies enhance the security of transactions by detecting fraudulent transactions and managing secure connections with our partners.
4. Functional Cookies These cookies enable the website to provide enhanced functionality and personalisation. They may be set by us or by third party providers whose services we have added to our pages. If you do not allow these cookies then some or all these services may not function properly.
5. Performance Cookies These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when you have visited our site and will not be able to monitor its performance.
6. Targeting These cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They can track your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies, you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.
7. Social Media Cookies These cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

How to reject cookies

If you don’t want to receive cookies, you can update your settings in our cookie management portal here: www.powa.co.za.

You can also alter your browser settings. The procedure for doing so varies from one browser application to another. If you wish to reject cookies from our site, but wish to accept those from other sites, you may choose the option in your browser settings to receive a notice before a cookie is stored on your device.

By disabling cookies, you may be prevented from accessing some features of our site or certain content or functionality may not be available.