SEARCH MADE EASY PRIVACY POLICY
DEFINITIONS
1.1. “ECTA” – refers to the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002
1.2. “SME” – refers to Search Made Easy website.
1.3. “PAIA” refers to the Promotion of Access to Information Act no 2 of 2000.
1.4. “Personal Information” – defined in accordance with section 1 of the POPI Act.
1.5. “POPI Act” – refers to the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 as amended
1.6. “User” – refers to the person using the website to view product and services.
1.7 “Vendor” – refer to the person with an subscription to this website.
1.8. “Website” – refers to the site searchmadeeasy.co.za
PRIVACY POLICY
2.1 This Privacy Policy is aligned with the requirements set out in the POPI Act, which requires us to protect the integrity and confidentiality of the information that has come into our possession therefore we endeavour to provide technical and organizational measures to ensure this. Furthermore, SME undertakes to comply with the provisions of PAIA (see PAIA document). While we endeavour to protect the integrity and confidentiality of the information, SME shall not be held liable in the event that private information is stolen, hacked or otherwise obtained due to circumstances beyond the control of SME.
PURPOSE OF A PRIVACY POLICY
3.1 The purpose of the privacy policy is to inform the Vendor and User of the personal information that may be gathered, how the information may be used and the protection utilized.
PERSONAL INFORMATION COLLECTED
4.1 As a User, you can browse our Website to find out more about us, our services and experience. You are not required to provide us with any Personal Information as a visitor. We collect your Personal Information when you choose to use the “Contact Us” feature to express an interest in obtaining information about us or our services or to enquire about any information on our Website. We ask for First Name, Last Name, Email Address and/or Mobile Number. If you Contact Us, you may also voluntarily share information related to you or your business. Generally, you control the type of information you provide to us when using our Website. The Personal Information that we collect depends on the context of your interaction with us and the Website, the choices you make and the products and features you use.
4.2 As a Vendor, 4.1 is applicable. In addition to this, when you subscribe we collect company information, which is public domain, in order to create a Vendor account on our system. This is the account you will be able to log into which will enable you to make use of the services you have subscribed for. This company information is necessary to enable a User to contact you if interested in a product or the service you as Vendor advertise on our website. Should you as Vendor not be a company or business but a natural person not having a registered business, and the only means of contacting you is via your personal phone or email address, then the onus is upon you to choose to provide SME with such information. The minimum being a personal email address to enable Users to contact you. However, you as Vendor, when logged in and viewing your account details, do have the option to choose what information must be visible and what should be hidden.
4.3 When you use our Website, we automatically collect certain computer information by the interaction of your mobile phone or web browser with our Website. Such information is typically considered non-personal information.
4.4 Furthermore, SME may collect personal information using the following methods.
4.3.1. Cookies
Our website makes use of cookies and will be used to identify the areas of our website that you have visited. A cookie is a small piece of data stored on your computer or mobile device by your web browser. We use cookies to personalise the content that you see on our website. Most web browsers can be set to disable the use of cookies. However, if you disable cookies, you may not be able to access functionality on the website correctly or at all. We will never place Personally Identifiable Information in cookies.
Session cookies": These are used to maintain a so-called 'session state' and only lasts for the duration of your use of the Website. A session cookie expires when you close your browser, or if you have not visited the server for a certain period of time. Session cookies are required for the Platform to function optimally, but are not used in any way to identify you personally.
4.3.2. Web Traffic Statistics
This is information that is collected without notification to the user. The web traffic process individually identifies information collected. This may include the IP and host address information of the user. The information obtained is used for general web traffic statistics and reports. The information obtained is not used to monitor, track or report on the usage of the user unless the user is suspected of illegal or unauthorized usage of any component the MASA infrastructure.
USE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION
5.1 The personal information shall be used only by SME and its employees in the process of delivering its organizational purpose and services
5.2 SME shall not sell, rent nor provide the user’s personal information to an unauthorized entity or to third parties for their independent use without the user’s consent. SME will release the user’s personal information to a party if it believes that SME is required by law or by a court or statutory body to do so. Furthermore, SME will also disclose the user’s personal information if SME believes that it is necessary to prevent or lessen any unlawful or harmful actions and to protect and defend legitimate business interests, rights, or property of SME.
CORRECTION OF PERSONAL INFORMATION
6.1 It is your responsibility to ensure that the personal information provided to website is true, correct, and accurate at all times. You may update and correct your personal information at any time either yourself via your online SME profile, via email communications to SME (for Members, kindly send an email to ), telephonically by calling a SME representative in relation to the services being used or rendered to you or through completing and sending Form 2 (Annexure B) in terms of POPI Act to the Information Officer at SME on . SME does not vet or check the information provided to it, and thus will not be held responsible for any incorrect or outdated information it may possess and which may be used to provide you with relevant and important communications.
6.2 If you would like your Personal Information to be deleted by SME, kindly also use Form 2 (Annexure B) and send same to Information Officer at SME on . Deleting your Personal Information may impact the services being used, offered or access thereto.
PROTECTION OF PERSONAL INFORMATION
7.1 All personal information collected by SME from the user is kept secure and confidential to the best extent possible. This includes security protection of the physical devices storing the information and computer-based protection in the form of passwords, encryptions and other means. Access to this personal information is only by authorized personnel of SME and technicians of its hosting provider. SME may extend this access with due regard for the safety of and ensuring the integrity and confidentiality of the personal information.
7.2 SME conducts regular security testing of its servers and ensures that its employees are trained around protection of personal information. Further, all SME employees, contractors and outsourced IT technicians utilize a system where users are given an access number, username, password and/or personal identification number as a security measure.
7.3 SME will provide the user with the records of their personal information at their request. As part of a security measure, the information requested will only be sent to the user’s email on file.
7.4 In the event a user objecting to their personal information being processed by SME, the user is required to complete Form 1 (Annexure A) in terms of the POPI Act and send the completed Form 1 to SME’s Information Officer on . Objecting to the processing of the personal information may result in services being stopped, access or implementation issues and/or other service inefficiencies and communications.
7.5 Personal information of the user is stored at the hosting facility with access only granted to authorized personnel. The personal information will only be retained for so long as necessary to carry out its function, services required and/or for historical and statistical use by SME. Personal information that is no longer required for purposes of rendering services shall be destroyed and SME undertakes to ensure that personal information shall not be stored longer than 5 (FIVE) years unless mandated by law and/or historical record purposes.
7.6 The user’s personal information may be stored on servers located outside of South Africa due to the ever-evolving structure of SME’s information management. As a result, SME undertakes to ensure that service providers used for such cloud servers and/or services are obliged to comply with the highest standards of data protection to ensure the security of your personal information.
LINKS ON SME WEBSITE OR EMAIL COMMUNICATIONS
8.1 SME is not responsible for the content or the privacy policies of websites of other institutions to which it may link you to – mainly for information purposes and access to documents provided by such institutions. The use of other third-party websites and content is at your sole discretion and risk. This Policy applies solely to information collected by the SME.
8.2 SME is not responsible for any representations or information or warranties or content on any website of any third party (including websites linked to the SME website). SME does not exercise control over third parties' privacy policies, and you should refer to the privacy policy of any third party to see how such party protects your privacy.
POLICY APPROVAL
9.1 SME board has approved this policy on 11 February 2025, and it will be reviewed periodically.