POPIA Compliance

1. What is POPIA?

The Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (POPIA) is South Africa's primary data protection legislation. It regulates how organisations collect, store, use, share, and dispose of personal information, and grants individuals specific rights regarding their data.

POPIA is overseen by the Information Regulator of South Africa, an independent body responsible for monitoring and enforcing compliance.

2. Information Officer

In terms of POPIA, Advance Hoopoe (Pty) Ltd has appointed an Information Officer who is responsible for ensuring compliance with the Act and handling all POPIA-related requests and complaints.

• Information Officer: J.R Krause
• Email: info@getadvance.co.za
• Address: Westville, KwaZulu Natal, South Africa.

Our Information Officer has been registered with the Information Regulator as required by POPIA.

3. Personal Information We Process

Depending on how you interact with the Advance platform, we may process the following categories of personal information:

• Identifiers , full name, email address, phone number.
• Account data , username, encrypted password, account preferences.
• Business information , company name, job title, VAT number.
• Financial data , billing address and payment method details (processed securely by our payment provider; we do not store full card numbers).
• Technical data , IP address, device identifiers, browser type, usage logs.
• User-uploaded content , product data, digital assets, and warranty records uploaded by your organisation.
• Communications , support tickets, emails, and feedback submitted to us.

We do not process any special personal information (as defined in Section 26 of POPIA) without explicit consent.

4. Purpose of Processing

We process personal information for the following specific, lawful purposes:

• Providing and maintaining the Advance platform and its features.
• Managing user accounts and verifying identity.
• Processing subscription payments and issuing invoices.
• Providing technical support and customer service.
• Improving and developing platform features through usage analytics.
• Sending service-related communications and security notifications.
• Complying with legal, regulatory, and audit obligations.

We will not process personal information for purposes beyond those listed above without notifying you and, where required, obtaining your consent.

5. Lawful Basis for Processing

We rely on the following grounds for processing personal information under POPIA:

• Contractual necessity , processing required to perform our contract with you (e.g. providing the Platform).
• Consent , where you have given clear, voluntary consent (e.g. marketing communications).
• Legitimate interest , where processing is necessary for our legitimate business interests and does not override your rights (e.g. platform analytics, security monitoring).
• Legal obligation , where processing is required to comply with applicable law.

6. Your Rights as a Data Subject

Under POPIA, you have the following rights regarding your personal information:

• Right to be notified , you must be informed when we collect your personal information and why.
• Right of access , you may request a record of the personal information we hold about you.
• Right to correction or deletion , you may request that inaccurate, irrelevant, or incomplete information be corrected or deleted.
• Right to object , you may object to the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances, including for direct marketing.
• Right to data portability , you may request your data in a portable, machine-readable format where technically feasible.
• Right not to be subject to automated decisions , you have the right not to be subject to decisions based solely on automated processing that have significant effects on you.

To exercise any of these rights, submit a request to our Information Officer at info@getadvance.co.za. We will respond within 30 days as required by POPIA.

7. Third-Party Operators

We engage third-party service providers ("operators" as defined by POPIA) who process personal information on our behalf. These include cloud infrastructure providers, payment processors, and email delivery services.

All operators are contractually bound to:

• Process personal information only on our documented instructions.
• Implement appropriate security measures.
• Notify us promptly of any security breach.
• Not engage sub-operators without our prior approval.

8. Cross-Border Transfers

Some of our operators may process personal information in countries outside of South Africa. We ensure that any cross-border transfer of personal information complies with Section 72 of POPIA by:

• Only transferring to countries with adequate data protection laws, or
• Ensuring the recipient is bound by contractual obligations that provide a comparable level of protection to POPIA, or
• Obtaining your consent to the transfer.

9. Security Safeguards

In terms of Section 19 of POPIA, we maintain appropriate technical and organisational security measures to protect personal information, including:

• Encryption of data in transit (TLS 1.2+) and at rest.
• Role-based access controls and the principle of least privilege.
• Regular security audits and vulnerability assessments.
• Employee training on data protection and confidentiality obligations.
• Incident response procedures for security breaches.

In the event of a security compromise involving your personal information, we will notify you and the Information Regulator within the timeframes prescribed by POPIA.

10. Complaints

If you believe your personal information has been processed in violation of POPIA, you have the right to lodge a complaint. We encourage you to first contact our Information Officer so that we can attempt to resolve the matter directly.

If we are unable to resolve your complaint to your satisfaction, you may escalate to the Information Regulator of South Africa:

• Website: www.inforegulator.org.za
• Email: enquiries@inforegulator.org.za

11. Contact

For all POPIA-related enquiries, access requests, objections, or complaints, please contact our Information Officer:

• Email: info@getadvance.co.za
• Company: Advance Hoopoe (Pty) Ltd, South Africa

We are committed to handling all requests in a timely, transparent, and respectful manner.