Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how The Think Tank (Pty) Ltd (registration number 2022/514260/07), trading as The Web Department (“we”, “us” or “our”), collects, uses and protects your personal information when you visit thewebdepartment.co.za or contact us through this website. We process personal information in accordance with the Protection of Personal Information Act, 4 of 2013 (“POPIA”).

1. What information we collect

Information you give us directly

When you submit our contact form, we collect:

• Your name
• Your email address
• Your website URL (optional)
• The type of support or services you’re interested in
• Any additional message you choose to send

Information collected automatically

When you visit our website, our hosting provider records standard technical information for security, troubleshooting and traffic analysis. This includes:

• Your IP address
• Your browser type and operating system
• The pages you visit and the time you visit them
• The website that referred you to ours, if any

Cookies and analytics

This website does not set any tracking cookies of its own. We may use Google Analytics 4 to understand which pages visitors view and how the site is performing. Google Analytics uses cookies and a small amount of pseudonymous data to do this. We have IP anonymisation enabled and do not use Google Analytics for advertising.

We use Cloudflare Turnstile on our contact form to prevent spam submissions. Turnstile analyses browser signals (not your identity) to confirm you are a real person. It does not track you across other websites.

When you first visit this site, you will see a cookie banner letting you accept all cookies, reject non-essential ones, or choose individually by category (Performance & Analytics, Marketing & Advertising). You can change your choice at any time by clicking Cookie settings in the footer of any page. Strictly necessary cookies (which remember your cookie preferences) are always on, but they do not track you.

2. How we use your information

We use your information to:

• Respond to enquiries you send us through the contact form
• Provide the services you ask us about
• Keep our website secure and improve how it performs
• Comply with our legal obligations

We do not sell your information, share it with advertisers, or use it for marketing without your explicit consent.

3. Lawful basis for processing

We process your personal information on one of the following legal bases under POPIA:

• Consent: you have given us your information voluntarily by submitting the contact form.
• Legitimate interest: to operate our website securely, respond to your enquiry, and understand how visitors use our site.
• Contract: where you become a client and we process your information to provide our services.

4. Who we share your information with

We share information only with trusted service providers who help us run our business. These include:

• Afrihost — our website hosting provider (servers, email, server logs)
• Google Analytics 4 — for anonymised website analytics
• Cloudflare — for spam protection and website security
• Calendly — if you book a call with us through our scheduling link

We do not share, sell or rent your personal information to third parties for marketing.

5. International transfers

Some of our service providers (Google, Cloudflare, Calendly) are based outside South Africa. When your information is transferred internationally, it is protected by the privacy frameworks those providers maintain (including the EU–US Data Privacy Framework and Standard Contractual Clauses), and they provide an adequate level of protection as required by POPIA.

6. How we keep your information secure

We take reasonable steps to protect your personal information:

• Our website is served over HTTPS (encrypted in transit)
• Contact form submissions are sent securely to our email
• Access to your information is limited to people who need it to assist you
• We use trusted hosting and service providers with their own security measures

No method of transmission or storage is 100% secure, but we work to protect your data appropriately for the risk involved.

7. How long we keep your information

We retain contact form submissions for as long as needed to respond to your enquiry, become a client, or comply with our legal obligations. If you do not become a client and there has been no contact for 24 months, we will delete your information.

Server log data is typically retained for up to 12 months for security and troubleshooting purposes.

8. Your rights

Under POPIA you have the right to:

• Access the personal information we hold about you
• Correct information that is incorrect, outdated or incomplete
• Delete your personal information, where applicable
• Object to our processing of your personal information
• Withdraw consent at any time, where we rely on consent
• Lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator (details below)

To exercise any of these rights, email us at info@thewebdepartment.co.za. We will respond within a reasonable time, and at most within 30 days.

9. Children’s information

This website is not intended for use by people under 18 years of age, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe a child has submitted information to us, please contact us so we can delete it.

10. Changes to this policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. The “Last updated” date at the top of this page will reflect any changes. We encourage you to review this policy occasionally.

11. Contact us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or how we handle your personal information, please contact our Information Officer:

12. Complaints to the Information Regulator

If you are not satisfied with how we have handled your personal information, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the South African Information Regulator: