Sioca Publishing (“We” “the Company”) is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. This policy (together with our terms of use at www.siocapublishing.com and any other documents referred to on it) sets out the basis on which any personal data we collect from you, or that you provide to us, will be processed by us. Please read the following carefully to understand our views and practices regarding your personal data and how we treat it.

For the purpose of the Data Protection Act (the “Act”), the data controller is Sioca Publishing.

Information we may collect from you

We may collect and process the following stat about you:

  • Information that you provide directly within the website www.siocapublishing.com (our site).
    This includes information provided at the time of registering to use our site, subscribing to our service, posting material, promotions or requesting further services. We may also ask you for information when you report a problem with our site.
  • If you contact us, we may keep a record of that correspondence.
  • We may also ask you to complete surveys that we use for research purposes, although you do not have to respond to them.
  • Details of transactions you carry out through our site and of the fulfilment of orders.
  • Details of your visits to our site including, but not limited to, traffic data, location data, weblogs and other communication data, whether this is required for billing purposes or otherwise and the resources that you access.

IP addresses and cookies

We may collect information about your computer, including where available your IP address, operating system and browser type, for system administration and to report aggregate information to any sponsors or advertisers. This is statistical data about our users’ browsing actions and patterns, and does not identify any individual.

For the same reason we obtain information about your general internet usage by using a cookie file which is stored on the hard drive of your computer. Cookies contain information that is transferred to your computers hard drive. They help us to improve our site and deliver a better and more personalised service. They enable us:

  • To estimate our audience size and usage pattern.
  • To store information about your preferences, and so allow us to customise our site according to your individual interests.
  • To speed up your searches.
  • To recognise you when you return to our site.

You may refuse to accept cookies by activating the setting on your browser which allows you to refuse the setting of cookies. However, if you select this setting you may be unable to access certain parts of our site. Unless you have adjusted your browser setting so that it refuses cookies, our system will issue cookies when you log on to our site.

Please note our sponsors and advertisers may also use cookies, over which we have no control.

Where we store your personal data

The data that we collect from you may be transferred to, and stored at, a destination outside South Africa. It may be processed by staff operating outside South Africa who work for us or for one of our suppliers. Such staff may be engaged in, among other things, the fulfilment of your order, the processing of your payment details and the provision of support services. By submitting your personal data, you agree to this transfer, storing or processing. We will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure your data is treated securely and in accordance with this privacy policy.

All information you provide to us is stored on our secure servers. Any payment transactions will be encrypted using SSL technology. Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password which enables you to access certain parts of our site, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share a password with anyone.

Unfortunately the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we can not guarantee the security of the data transmitted to our site; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try and prevent unauthorised access.

Uses made of the information

We use the information held about you in the following ways:

  • To ensure that content from our site is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer.
  • To provide you with information, products or services that you request from us or which we feel may interest you, where you have consented to be contacted for such purposes.
  • To carry out our obligations arising from any contracts entered into between you and us.
  • To allow you to participate in interactive features of our service, when you chose to do so.
  • To notify you about changes to our service.

If you are an existing customer, we will only contact you by electronic means (e-mail or SMS) with information about goods and services similar to those which were subject of a previous sale to you.
If you are a new customer, and where we permit selected third parties to use your data, we (or they) will contact you by electronic means only, if you have consented to this.
If you do want us to use your data in this way, or to pass your details on to third parties for marketing purposes, please contact us via info@siocapublishing.com.

Disclosure of your information

We may disclose your personal information to any member of our group, which means our subsidiaries, our ultimate holding company and its subsidiaries, as defined in the Companies Act.
We may disclose your personal information to third parties:

  • If we employ other companies and individuals to perform functions on our behalf. Examples include fulfilling orders, delivering packages, sending postal mail and e-mail, removing repetitive information from customer lists, analysing data, providing marketing assistance, providing search results and links (including paid listings and links), processing credit card payments and providing customer service. They have access to personal information needed to perform these functions, but may use it for other purposes. Further, they must process the personal information in accordance with this Privacy Notice and as permitted by the Act.
  • In the event that we sell or buy any business or assets, in which case we may disclose your personal data to the prospective seller or buyer of such business or assets.
  • If the Company substantially all of its assets are acquired by a third party, in which case personal data held by it about its customers will be one of the transferred assets.
  • If we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation, or in order to enforce or apply our terms and conditions of supply and other agreements; or to protect the rights, property, or safety of the Company, our customers, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for the purpose of fraud protection and credit risk reduction.

Your rights

You have the right to request us not to process your personal data for marketing purposes. We will endeavour to inform you (before collecting your data) if we intend to use your data for such purposes or if we intend to disclose your information to any third party for such purposes. You can exercise your right to prevent such processing by checking certain boxes on the forms we use to collect your data. You can exercise your right at any time by contacting us at info@siocapublishing.com

Our site may, from time to time, contain links to and from the websites of our partner networks, advertisers and affiliates. If you follow a link to any of these websites, please note that these websites have their own privacy policies and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for these policies. Please check these policies before you submit any personal data to these websites.

Access to information

The Act gives you the right to access information held but you. Your right of access can be exercised in accordance with the Act. Any access request may be subject to a fee of ZAR300 to meet our costs in providing you with details of the information we hold about you.

Changes to our privacy policy

Any changes we may make to our privacy policy in the future will be posted on this page and, where appropriate, notified to you by e-mail.

Contact

Questions, comments and requests regarding this privacy policy are welcome and should be addressed to info@siocapublishing.com