Privacy Policy

This Southern Litigation Centre Privacy Policy (“Policy”), applies to how we collect, use and process your personal information and, in some instance, special personal information. Please read this Privacy Policy carefully.

 

All the provisions of this Privacy Policy are important, but please pay special attention to the parts that are in bold writing.  These parts contain information about provisions that have special consequences for you.  These parts are only intended to bring such provisions to your attention, and, where necessary, to explain their fact, nature and effect.

 

 Scope of the Privacy Policy

  1. The Southern Litigation Centre(“SALC”) conducts its business as a non-Profit organisation (“NPO”) with its main offices in Johannesburg (President Place 1 Hood Avenue/ 148 Jan Smuts Avenue Rosebank).
  2. SALC is a responsible party (or data controller, in some jurisdictions) in respect of your Personal Information (as defined in paragraph 13), and Special Personal Information (as defined in paragraph 15), which means that SALC determines the purpose of and means for processing your Personal Information.
  3. SALC is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.  We strive to ensure that our use of your Personal Information is lawful, reasonable, and relevant to our business activities, with the goal of improving our services and your experience.
  4. We have appointed an Information Officer who is responsible for overseeing questions in relation to the Privacy Policy. You may contact our Information Officer at enquires@salc.org.za to discuss this Privacy Policy or your rights under data protection legislation that is applicable to you.
  5. This Privacy Policy describes how we will treat your Personal Information, whether provided by you to us, or collected by us through other means when you engage with us, in your ordinary use of our products and services, in providing us with your products and services, or in accessing our website (the “Website“).
  6. This Privacy Policy must, as is appropriate, be read together with any other documents or agreements between SALC and you (the “Agreements“) that describe the way we, in specific circumstances, collect or process Personal Information about you. This will enable you to understand the way SALC will process your Personal Information.

Your consent to the Processing of your Personal Information

  1. We may collect, get, receive, record, organise, collate, store, update, change, retrieve, read, process, use and share your Personal Information in the ways set out in this Privacy Policy. When we do one or more of these actions with your Personal Information, we are “Processing” your Personal Information (and “process” has a corresponding meaning).
  2. If you are concerned about any aspect of this Privacy Policy as it relates to your Personal Information, please do not continue to engage with us, use our website or our products and services.
  3. We may, where permitted or required to do so by applicable law, process your Personal Information without your knowledge or permission, if sufficient grounds of justification are present, and we will do so in accordance with the further provisions of this Privacy Policy.
  4. All other Personal Information is optional. If you do not agree to share your Personal Information with us, then in some instances you will not be able to engage with us, or make full use of our products and services and/or the features that are offered to Website users, including products and services which are available on the Website.

What and who does this Privacy Policy apply to?

  1. This Privacy Policy applies to the processing by us or on our behalf, of the Personal Information relating to you, being a user who accesses and/or uses our Website or our products and services, or a provider of products and services to us, clients, suppliers, former employees, prospective employees and other data subjects that engage with us.
  2. This Privacy Policy applies regardless of the device which you use to access our Website or to engage with us, which device is capable of using, or enabled to use, the Website including, but not limited to, internet-connected mobile devices and tablets (“Access Device“).
  3. This Privacy Policy does not apply to the processing of Personal Information by other third parties relating to or by means of other parties’ websites, products or services, such as websites linked to, from, or advertised on the Website or through our products and services, or sites which link to or advertise the Website or our products, services and lawyers.

What is Personal Information?

  1. Personal Information” refers to private information about an identifiable living natural person or, where applicable, an identifiable existing juristic person. Personal Information does not include information that does not identify you (including in instances where that information has been de-identified so that it does not identify a person). The Personal Information that we collect about you may differ based on your engagement with us or the products and services that you receive from SALC or that you provide to SALC.

We may process various types of Personal Information about you, as follows:

  1. SALC may also process, collect, store and/or use aggregated data, which may include historical or statistical data (“Aggregated Data“) for any purpose, including for know-how and research purposes. Aggregated Data may be derived from your Personal Information but is not always considered Personal Information, as this data does not directly or indirectly reveal your identity. However, if we combine or connect Aggregated Data with your Personal Information in a manner that has the result that it can directly or indirectly identify you, we will treat the combined data as Personal Information, which will be managed in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

Special Personal Information

  1. You are hereby notified that, in certain circumstances, by engaging with SALC, we may collect certain Special Personal Information about you. “Special Personal Information” refers to details about your religious or philosophical beliefs, race or ethnic origin, trade union membership, political persuasion, health or sex life, biometric information, or information about your criminal offences or convictions.
  2. The processing of Special Personal Information requires higher levels of protection. We need to have further justifications for processing Special Personal Information. SALC has implemented appropriate policies and safeguards, which we are required by law to maintain, to process Special Personal Information.

When will we process your Special Personal Information?

  1. We will generally not process particularly Special Personal Information about you unless it is necessary for establishing, exercising or defending a right or obligation in law, or where we have obtained your consent to do so. On rare occasions, there may be other reasons for processing your Special Personal Information, such as where the information has been deliberately made public by you. The situations in which we may process your Special Personal Information include the following:
  • racial and ethnic information may be processed by SALC through CCTV cameras installed at SALC premises for safety and security reasons;
  • as part of the recruitment and hiring process, we may process information relating to your criminal behaviour;
  • may process information relating to your health as part of our screening processes when accessing our premises in order to comply with Covid-19 regulations and protocols; and
  • we may process information that indicates your religious beliefs (for example, when you attend events organised by SALC, we may ask you for your dietary requirements, and this may indicate your religious beliefs).

How we collect your Personal Information

  1. We collect your Personal Information in the following ways:
  • through direct or active interactions with you;
  • through automated or passive interactions with you;
  • from third parties and public sources; and
  • CCTV.

Direct or active collection from you

  1. We may require that you submit certain information:
  • to enable you to access portions of the Website;
  • to subscribe to our publications;
  • to request marketing or information about our events to be sent to you;
  • to apply for job opportunities;
  • to make contact with our and employees;
  • to grant you access to our premises;
  • to enable you to facilitate the conclusion of an agreement with us; and
  • at is necessary for our fulfilment of our statutory or regulatory obligations.
  1. We also collect Personal Information directly from you when you communicate directly with us, for example when you complete certain application forms, via e-mail, telephone calls, feedback forms, registering for and attending events, giving us your business card, site comments or forums.
  2. If you contact us, we reserve the right to retain a record of that correspondence in accordance with our Retention and Destruction of Records Policy and applicable data protection legislation, which may include Personal Information.
  3. the Personal Information that we actively collect from you may include any of the Personal Information listed above in this Policy and, in some instances, certain Special Personal Information listed in this Privacy Policy.

 CCTV

  1. SALC collects Personal Information and Special Personal Information about you through CCTV cameras installed at SALC premises for safety and security reasons.

 Sharing of your Personal Information

  1. SALC will not intentionally disclose your Personal Information, whether for commercial gain or otherwise, other than with your permission, as permitted by applicable law or in the manner as set out in this Privacy Policy.
  2. SALC will get your permission before disclosing your Personal Information to any third party for any other purpose if we are required by law to do so.

Storage and transfer of your Personal Information

  1. We store your Personal Information on:
  • our premises, in the form of hard copies;
  • our servers; or
  • the servers of our third-party service providers, such as IT systems or hosting service providers.
  1. In the event that we store your personal information with third parties, we will ensure that we have entered into written agreements with those third-party service providers governing our relationship with them that require them to secure the integrity and confidentiality of Personal Information in their possession by taking appropriate, reasonable technical and organisational measures.
  2. From time to time, SALC and its service providers may need to transfer to and/or store your Personal Information on servers in a jurisdiction other than where it was collected (i.e., outside of South Africa); we hereby notify you that in such instances your consent will be sought and we will take reasonably practicable steps, including the imposition of appropriate contractual terms to ensure that your Personal Information is adequately protected in that jurisdiction.

Security

  1. We take reasonable technical and organisational measures to secure the integrity of your Personal Information and using accepted technological standards to prevent unauthorised access to or disclosure of your Personal Information, and protect your Personal Information from misuse, loss, alteration and destruction.
  2. We review our information collection, storage and processing practices, including physical security measures periodically, to ensure that we keep abreast of good practice.
  3. We also create a back-up of your information for operational, business continuity and safety purposes and we have a back-up disaster recovery program.
  4. SALC has implemented policies and procedures to address actual and suspected data breaches and undertakes to notify you and the relevant regulatory authorities of breaches in instances in which WW is legally required to do so and within the period in which such notification is necessary.

Retention of your Personal Information

  1. We may keep your Personal Information for as long as you continue to engage with us, provide services or products to us, access the Website and content and/or use our products and/or services or for as long as reasonably necessary or until you contact us and ask us to destroy it.
  2. To determine the appropriate retention period for Personal Information, SALC will consider, among other things, the nature and sensitivity of the Personal Information, the potential risks or harm that may result from its unauthorised use or disclosure, the purposes for which we process it and whether those purposes may be achieved through other means.
  3. SALC will always comply with applicable legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or other requirements as they pertain to the retention of Personal Information, as well as our Record Retention Policy.

Maintenance of your Personal Information

  1. Where required by law, SALC will take all reasonable steps to ensure that your Personal Information is accurate, complete, not misleading and up to date.
  2. SALC also acknowledge that you may have rights of access to, and the right to rectify, your Personal Information, and rights to object to the processing of your Personal Information in certain circumstances as will be specified below.
  3. You must let us know if any of the Personal Information that we have about you is incorrect, incomplete, misleading or out of date, by notifying us at the contact details set out below and where applicable, by notifying your SALC contact.
  4. Where required by law, we will take reasonable steps to correct or update your Personal Information, accordingly, having regard to the purpose for which such Personal Information was collected or used.

Your rights

  1. Data protection legislation may confer certain rights on you in respect of your Personal Information. We aim to be clear about what Personal Information we collect so that you can make meaningful choices about what Personal Information you make available to us. You may, for example:
  • Block all cookies, by setting your browser to do so, including cookies associated with our products and services or to indicate when a cookie is being sent by us.
  • Request access to your Personal Information (commonly known as a “data subject access request”), which indicates what Personal Information we have about you.
  • Request the correction of your Personal Information, in order to ensure that any incomplete or inaccurate Personal Information is corrected.
  • Request erasure of your Personal Information, where there is no lawful basis for the retention or continued processing of it.
  • Object to the processing of your Personal Informationfor a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms.
  • Request restriction of processing of your Personal Information. This enables you to ask WW to suspend the processing of your Personal Information in limited circumstances, which may differ by jurisdiction.
  • Withdraw consent which you previously gave to the processing of your Personal Informationat any time. You may withdraw your consent for us to process your Personal Information at any time. The withdrawal of your consent can only be made by you on condition that such withdrawal of your consent:

 

    • does not affect the processing of your Personal Information before the withdrawal of your consent; or
    • does not affect the processing of your Personal Information if the processing follows an obligation imposed by law on us; or
    • does not affect the processing of your Personal Information where such processing is necessary for the proper performance of a public law duty by a public body; or
    • does not affect the processing of your Personal Information as required to finalise the performance of a contract in which you are a party; or
    • does not affect the processing of your Personal Information as required to protect your legitimate interests or our own legitimate interests or the legitimate interests of a third party to whom the information is supplied.
  1. Withdrawal of consent may limit our ability to provide certain products and services to you or the ability of a third party to provide certain products or services to you but will not affect the continued processing of your Personal Information in instances in which your consent is not required.
  2. To the extent allowed by the law, this Privacy Policy may be amended and updated from time to time in our sole discretion, without notice, provided that if we do so, we will post the revised policy on the Website and we will take reasonably practicable steps to inform you of the updated Privacy Policy.
  3. Accordingly, please check this Privacy Policy for changes periodically.  If you continue to engage with us, provide products or services to us or access or use the Website and/or products and services after amendments are made to the Privacy Policy and displayed on this Website, you will be deemed to have accepted the updated Privacy Policy.

Children

  1. The Website and our products or services are not targeted at people under the age of 18.
  2. We may, in limited instances, process Personal Information of children, including while providing services to you. In such cases, the processing of children’s personal information is conducted with the consent of a competent person or to comply with an obligation in law.
  3. We will not knowingly collect Personal Information of persons in this age group without express consent to do so or without a legal obligation to do so.
  4. For any questions in respect of the processing of Personal Information of children, please contact the Information Officer or your WW contact.

Direct Marketing

  1. SALC processes Personal Information for the purpose of direct marketing by way of electronic communication. We will only send you direct marketing materials if you have specifically opted-in to receive these materials.
  2. If you complete the subscription form on the Website, you agree to receive marketing communication from us.
  3. You may refuse to accept, require us to discontinue, or pre-emptively block any approach or communication from us if that approach or communication is primarily for the purpose of direct marketing (“direct marketing communications“).
  4. You may opt out of receiving direct marketing communication from us at any time by requesting us (in any manner, whether telephonically, electronically, in writing or in person) to stop providing any direct marketing communication to you. You may send your opt-out requests to enquires@salc.org.za.

Consumer Protection Act, Protection of Personal Information Act and other laws

  1. If this Privacy Policy or any provision in this Privacy Policy is regulated by or subject to the Consumer Protection Act, 68 of 2008, the Protection of Personal Information Act, 4 of 2013 (“POPIA”) or other laws, it is not intended that any provision of this Privacy Policy contravenes any provision of the Consumer Protection Act, POPIA or such other laws.
  2. Therefore, all provisions of this Privacy Policy must be treated as being qualified, to the extent necessary, to ensure that the provisions of the Consumer Protection Act, POPIA and such other laws are complied with.

Queries and contact details of the Information Regulator

  1. Should you feel that your rights in respect of your Personal Information have been infringed, please address your concerns to the Information Officer at enquiries@salc.org.za.
  2. If you feel that the attempts by SALC to resolve the matter have been inadequate, you may lodge a complaint with the South African Information Regulator by accessing their website at justice.gov.za/inforeg.
  3. If you are located outside of South Africa, you may contact the appropriate regulator in your country of domicile.