Privacy & POPIA Policy

We collect and process personal information to deliver our web development services, respond to enquiries, and manage client relationships. This includes:

• Contact & Enquiry Details: Name, business name, email address, phone/WhatsApp number, and physical/billing addresses — submitted via our quote form, contact and support pages, or account signup.
• Marketing Details: Your email address (and the website URL you enter) when you subscribe to our newsletter or use our free website-audit tool. You can opt out at any time (see “Your Rights”).
• Project Data: Content, branding assets, credentials, and source files you provide so we can execute development work.
• Technical & Consent Data: IP address, browser/device information, and — where you consent — analytics and advertising cookies. When you set your cookie preferences we keep a record of that choice (including IP and browser agent) as proof of consent.

In terms of POPIA, we only process personal information for clear, legitimate purposes, including:

• Responding to enquiries and drafting quotes, invoices, and service estimates.
• Configuring hosting, domains, databases, and third-party integrations to deliver your project.
• Providing technical assistance, maintenance retainers, and support ticketing.
• Sending marketing emails you have opted into (newsletter / audit follow-ups), which you can unsubscribe from at any time.
• Measuring and improving our website — only where you have granted analytics/marketing consent.
• Complying with South African statutory financial, tax, and legal obligations.

We never sell your personal information. To run our service we share the minimum necessary data with trusted sub-processors (Operators under POPIA), each bound by their own data-protection terms:

• Supabase — database, authentication, and file storage.
• Vercel — website hosting and privacy-friendly, cookieless traffic analytics.
• Resend — delivery of transactional and (opted-in) marketing email.
• Google reCAPTCHA — spam/abuse protection on our forms.
• Payment gateways — Paystack, Yoco, or PayFast process any online payments; we do not store your full card details.
• Google (Analytics & Ads) and Meta (Pixel) — only if you grant the relevant cookie consent, for measurement and advertising.

Some of these providers process data on servers outside South Africa. Where personal information is transferred cross-border (POPIA s72), we rely on the provider’s contractual and technical safeguards to ensure comparable protection.

We keep personal information only as long as necessary for the purpose it was collected, or as the law requires:

• Enquiries & quotes that don’t become projects: up to 24 months after last contact, then deleted.
• Client & project records: for the duration of our relationship; financial records (invoices, payments) are retained for at least 5 years as required by South African tax law.
• Newsletter subscribers: until you unsubscribe.
• Support tickets: up to 24 months.
• Cookie-consent records: up to 12 months as proof of your choice.

Necessary cookies keep the site working and are always on. Beyond those, we ask for your consent before setting any analytics (measurement) or marketing (advertising) cookies, and we treat those categories separately — you can accept one and decline the other. You can change or withdraw your choice at any time via the “Cookie” controls in the site footer/banner. Our built-in traffic analytics (Vercel) is cookieless and privacy-friendly.

Clear Kove employs appropriate technical and organizational measures to prevent unauthorized access, loss, damage, or destruction of personal information — including encrypted data transfers (SSL/TLS), row-level access controls, and reputable, security-audited infrastructure. While we take every reasonable precaution, no digital transmission or storage system can be guaranteed 100% secure.

Under POPIA you retain full ownership of your data. You have the right to:

• Request a copy of the personal information we hold about you.
• Ask us to correct inaccurate or outdated records.
• Ask us to delete your personal information from our active systems (subject to records we must keep by law).
• Unsubscribe from marketing email at any time — every marketing email includes a one-click unsubscribe link, or you can ask us directly.

To exercise any of these, contact our Information Officer (below); we’ll respond within the 30-day POPIA timeframe.

If you have any questions, concerns, or wish to exercise your rights, contact Clear Kove’s Information Officer at hello@clear-kove.co.za or submit a request via our Support Page. Your request is routed to our designated Information Officer, who will investigate and issue a formal response within the 30-day timeline required under the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA).