SHC Privacy Policy

PRIVACY POLICY NOTICE

1 Introduction

1.1 This is the Privacy Notice of Smart Helpers Center (Pty) Ltd and available at www.Smarthelpershcenter.co.za (Website), which applies to the personal information of Smart Helpers Center’s customers(Helpers and Employers) , suppliers, business partners, prospective employees, and visitors (you).

1.2 Smart Helpers Center respects privacy rights and complies with all laws in respect of the handling of personal information, including collection, use, storage, sharing and disposal.

1.3 This Privacy Notice helps you understand how Smart Helpers Center handles personal information when you use the Website or interact with us in other ways such as at our offices or over the telephone or email.

1.4 This Privacy Notice does not apply to any third-party websites which may be accessible through links on the Website. Smart Helpers Center makes no representations or warranties about the privacy practices of any third party and does not accept any responsibility for the privacy practices of, or content displayed on, third party websites. Third party website providers are responsible for informing you about their own privacy practices.

2 Changes to Privacy Notice 

Smart Helpers Center may change or update this Privacy Notice from time to time. Any updated versions of this Privacy Notice will be posted on the Website and will be effective from the date of posting. Where practical, and at Smart Helpers Center’s discretion, notice of the change will be displayed on the Website.

3 What personal information does Smart Helpers Center handle? 

3.1 When used in this Notice, the term “personal information” has the meaning given to it in the Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013 (POPIA). Personal information is any information that can be used to personally identify a natural or juristic person. Special personal information is any information that is considered by law to be particularly sensitive information. This includes information related to your health, sex life, race, ethnic origin, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, political persuasion and criminal behaviour and biometric information. More restrictions apply to the handling of special personal information and the information of children because they are particularly sensitive.

3.2 We may collect, use, store and otherwise handle by any means (also known as “processing”) the following personal information, whether that information is provided by you or by a third party:

  1.  Your biographical information ► including your name, gender, date of birth, language, nationality and marital status.
  2. Your contact information ► including your telephone number(s), address, email address, contact person or next of kin in case of emergency.
  3. Your identification information ► including your national identity details, passport information, email
  4. Your preferences ► including your preferred helpers skills, age group, language, nationality, communication and  marketing preferences;
  5. Qualification and Employment information ► including certificates obtained by a helper to ensure that these are match with placement requirement. Employment history of helpers to ensure that they have the right skills for a specific placement.
  6. Communications ► including correspondence with you;
  7. Website information ► including information collected through cookies when you use our website to which our cookies policy applies, or other information you provide to us when using our website;
  8. Special Personal Information ► including:
    • (a) Biometric information such as fingerprint used for criminal background checks conducted when you apply to us for employment verification
    • (d) Criminal behavior and offences of Helpers, namely details of criminal behavior and offences committed in the past.
    • (c) Health information such as special need or care required in the household to ensure that the home is placed with the right care giver.
  9. Personal information of children such as pets in the household, size of your house, the number of children’s to ensure that the helper with the right experienced is matched with the employer family.
  10. In addition, we may collect any other information relating to you which we lawfully receive, and which may be relevant to your dealings with Smart Helpers Center. If the information that Smart Helpers Center collects personally identifies you, or you are reasonably identifiable from it, Smart Helpers Center will treat it as personal information.

4 Personal Information of third parties 

4.1 You should not disclose the personal information of third parties to Smart Helpers Center unless:

  1. here is a reason why Smart Helpers Center needs to have that information;
  2. you are permitted by the third party to disclose their personal information to Smart Helpers Center or you must be their parent or guardian; and
  3. you have brought this privacy policy to the attention of the third party.

4.2 An example of when you may disclose a third’ party’s personal information to us is when you are hiring a helper on behalf of someone (e.g Secretary or assistant completing the request form) with their consent.

4.3 When you give us the personal information of a third party, please provide a copy of this Privacy Notice to that person so that they can also be made aware of the conditions under which their personal information is handled by us.

4.4 Smart Helpers Center has no way of checking that you have complied with the requirements relating to the disclosure of third party’s personal information and therefore must assume that you have done so.

5 How does Smart Helpers Center collect your personal information? 

5.1 Smart Helpers Center collects your personal information directly from you in the following ways, namely when you:

  1. Access to and use of the Website or any of our mobile platforms or applications;
  2. Information from 3rd party social media services

Smart Helpers Center allows you to create an account and log in to use the Service through the following Third-party Social Media Services:

  • Google
  • Facebook
  • Twitter or Instagram

If You decide to register through or otherwise grant us access to a Third-Party Social Media Service, We may collect Personal data that is already associated with Your Third-Party Social Media Service’s account, such as Your name, Your email address, Your activities or Your contact list associated with that account.

You may also have the option of sharing additional information with the Company through Your Third-Party Social Media Service’s account. If You choose to provide such information and Personal Data, during registration or otherwise, You are giving the Company permission to use, share, and store it in a manner consistent with this Privacy Policy.

  1. Visit Smart Helpers Center’s offices or other premises;
  2. Register an account with us;
  3. Complete a form or contractual agreement which is required in the process of your engagement with us;
  4. Address a query to us;
  5. Interact with us on social media; or through direct messaging systems
  6. Enter a promotional competition run by us;
  7. Apply to Smart Helpers Center for employment and hiring of a helper.
  8. Communicate with Smart Helpers Center in any way; and
  9. Have a business relationship with Smart Helpers Center.

5.2 Smart Helpers Center also collects your personal information from third parties when they request our services.

6 What happens if you do not permit Smart Helpers Center to collect your personal information? 

If you do not provide Smart Helpers Center with your personal information where Smart Helpers Center requires it, you will not be able to  use Smart Helpers Center’s services; apply to Smart Helpers Center for employment (Helpers), Use Smart Helpers Center platform and service to hire a Helper (Employers) , enter Smart Helpers Center’s premises or access certain portions of the Website or Smart Helpers Center’s mobile platform and applications and this may restrict your dealings with Smart Helpers Center.

7 For what purposes does Smart Helpers Center handle your personal information? 

7.1 The law permits us to handle personal information where there is a lawful purpose and justification for doing so. Justifications include where we have your consent, where it is necessary to perform or conclude a contract with you, where it is in our or your legitimate interests or where the law requires us to do so. The purposes for which we handle personal information are set out below

7.2 We are only permitted to handle your special personal information and the personal information of children under limited circumstances. We will only do so with consent or where we are otherwise permitted by the law.

7.3 We will only handle your personal information for the purposes for which we have obtained it and on a ground of justification stated in POPIA. The purposes include:

  1. To manage recruitment, training and placement process ► including helpers eligibility for work, processing job applications, vetting, managing employer requests for helpers (hiring). Justification: Your consent
  2. To manage our relationship with you and legal compliance ► To ensure compliance with laws and to be able conduct our business with you, engage with you or market and provide our services to you, authenticate your identity, to enable us to communicate with you and provide information to you and keep our records updated. Justification: (i) Basic Condition of Employment Act,1997; Sectorial Determination 7; Compensation for Occupational Injuries and diseases Amendment Act, No 61 of 1997;Unemployment Insurance Act, No 63 of 2001; Consumer Protection Act, 2008; Electronic Communications and Transactions Act, 2002; (ii) To conclude or perform in terms of a contract with you; (iii) Your consent where we ask for it and no other ground of justification applies.

The above will include communication of Smart Helpers Center offerings to ensure compliance as stated above.

  1. To manage retainers programs ► including administering  of benefits Justification: To conclude or perform in terms of a contract with you
  2. To comply with policies including monitoring ► including in relation to employers and helpers, or legal processes or requirements and conducting investigations and incident and disciplinary processes. We may conduct limited monitoring in accordance with the Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of Communication-related Information Act, 2002 or our IT policy, or your consent.
    Justification: (i) Our legitimate interest; (ii) Your consent where we ask for it and no other ground of justification applies.
  3. For security purposes ► for providing IT support, security and your authentication (e.g. to check for unauthorized use of those systems and to comply with record keeping and other legal obligations) and to enable you to access our premises.
    Justification: Our and your legitimate interest, compliance with laws governing cross border
    travel.
  4. To maintain a safe working environment ► we may collect and use personal information to provide a safe and healthy working environment for both our helpers and employers:
    • (a) Health information, to make provision for special need and care required
    • (b) Details of criminal offences, so that we can prevent and detect crime. Justification: (i) Our legitimate interest; (ii) To comply with the law including the occupational Health and Safety Act, 1993; (iii) To conclude or perform in terms of a contract with you
  5. To monitor equal opportunities for prospective employees and our suppliers ► managing race, gender, nationality as part of our equal opportunities monitoring processes.
    Justification: (i) To comply with the Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment Act, 2003;
    (ii) Our legitimate interest.

7.4 Where we cannot rely on an alternative legal justification for our handling of your personal information above, we will rely on your consent. Where we do so, you are free to withdraw your consent at any time by contacting us. However, where you withdraw your consent, the consequences in section 6
may apply.

7.5 Generally, where you are our supplier, we handle your personal information on the basis that it is necessary to do so in connection with our contract with you. We may also handle your personal information to further our legitimate interests, such as to optimise the working environment, and our other business interests or in terms of the law. In all instances we will have a lawful justification to handle your personal information.

7.6 To improve our business model: We may use your information to evaluate or conduct a merger, divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution, or other sale or transfer of some or all of Our assets, whether as a going concern or as part of bankruptcy, liquidation, or similar proceeding, in which Personal Data held by us about our Service users is among the assets transferred.

8 To whom does Smart Helpers Center disclose your personal information? 

8.1 Smart Helpers Center may disclose your personal information to:

  1. Our employees, affiliates, contractors or third-party service providers;
  2. Our business partners which we code share, which provide services to you or with which you may interact as part of your dealings with us;
  3. Financial institutions in the case of refunds;
  4. persons to which we transfer our rights and obligations under our contracts with you;
  5. Our insurers and our professional advisors, including our accountants, lawyers, business advisors and consultants;
  6. Employment agencies, past employers or companies that contracted Helpers to us.
  7. our suppliers
  8. Law enforcement or regulatory bodies; and
  9. Any other juristic or natural person for any authorised purpose with your consent.

8.2 We may disclose the personal information of other persons where necessary (for example, another person on whose behalf you have requested a placement service) to our service providers and business partners.

8.3 We will never sell personal information.

9 Does Smart Helpers Center disclose your personal information to anyone outside South Africa? 

9.1 Your personal information may be transferred to, or stored in, a country other than South Africa. This may include your personal information being transferred to, and stored with, Smart Helpers Center’s third party suppliers and service providers, such as hosting or information technology service providers located outside of South Africa, for some of the purposes listed above.

9.2 Where the personal information is transferred outside of South Africa, it will be transferred to a country with suitable protections on personal information or will be transferred subject to an agreement or rules that protect the personal information.

10 Direct marketing 

10.1 If you are a customer of Smart Helpers Center we may send you marketing communications from time to time that may be of interest to you. Each time you receive such a communication from us, there will be a simple and convenient method of opting out of receiving future marketing communications from us.

10.2 If you are not a customer of Smart Helpers Center we may request your permission to send you marketing communications from time to time that may be of interest to you. If you decline the request, Smart Helpers Center will not send you marketing communications.

11 Security and storage 

11.1 We may hold personal information in either electronic or hard copy form. In both cases we will take reasonable and appropriate steps to ensure that the personal information is protected from misuse and loss and from unauthorized access, modification, or disclosure.

11.2 We keep personal information for as long as we need to achieve the purpose for which it was collected and any other permitted linked purpose (for example your personal information which is relevant to a transaction may be retained until the time limit for claims in respect of the transaction has expired or to comply with regulatory requirements regarding the retention of such information). If personal information is handled for 2 purposes, we will retain it until the purpose with the latest period expires but we will stop using it for the purpose with a shorter period once that period expires.

11.3 Personal information is destroyed or irreversibly anonymized when no longer needed or when we are no longer required by law to retain it (whichever is the later).

11.4 We restrict access to the personal information to those authorized persons who need to use it for the relevant purpose(s).

  1. Tracking Technologies and Cookies

12.1 We use Cookies and similar tracking technologies to track the activity on Our Service and store certain information. Tracking technologies used are beacons, tags, and scripts to collect and track information and to improve and analyze Our Service. The technologies we use may include:

Cookies or Browser Cookies. A cookie is a small file placed on Your Device. You can instruct your browser to refuse all Cookies or to indicate when a Cookie is being sent. However, if you do not accept Cookies, You may not be able to use some parts of our Service. Unless you have adjusted your browser setting so that it will refuse Cookies, our Service may use Cookies.

Flash Cookies. Certain features of our Service may use local stored objects (or Flash Cookies) to collect and store information about your preferences or your activity on our Service. Flash Cookies are not managed by the same browser settings as those used for Browser Cookies. For more information on how You can delete Flash Cookies, please read “Where can I change the settings for disabling, or deleting local shared objects?” available at https://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/disable-local-shared-objects-flash.html#main_Where_can_I_change_the_settings_for_disabling__or_deleting_local_shared_objects_

Web Beacons. Certain sections of our Service and our emails may contain small electronic files known as web beacons (also referred to as clear gifs, pixel tags, and single-pixel gifs) that permit the Company, for example, to count users who have visited those pages or opened an email and for other related website statistics (for example, recording the popularity of a certain section and verifying system and server integrity).

Cookies can be “Persistent” or “Session” Cookies. Persistent Cookies remain on your personal computer or mobile device when you go offline, while Session Cookies are deleted as soon as You close Your web browser. Learn more about cookies: Cookies: What Do They Do?.

We use both Session and Persistent Cookies for the purposes set out below:

Necessary / Essential Cookies

Type: Session Cookies

Administered by: Us

Purpose: These Cookies are essential to provide you with services available through the Website and to enable you to use some of its features. They help to authenticate users and prevent fraudulent use of user accounts. Without these Cookies, the services that you have asked for cannot be provided, and we only use these Cookies to provide You with those services.

Cookies Policy / Notice Acceptance Cookies

Type: Persistent Cookies

Administered by: Us

Purpose: These Cookies identify if users have accepted the use of cookies on the Website.

Functionality Cookies

Type: Persistent Cookies

Administered by: Us

Purpose: These Cookies allow us to remember choices you make when you use the Website, such as remembering your login details or language preference. The purpose of these Cookies is to provide you with a more personal experience and to avoid you having to re-enter your preferences every time You use the Website

13 How can you exercise your rights? 

13.1 You have the right to contact us at any time requesting:

  1. Confirmation that we have your personal information;
  2. Access to the records containing your personal information or a description of the personal information that we hold about you; and
  3. The identity or categories of third parties who have had, or currently have, access to your personal information.

13.2 You also have the right to object to our handling of your personal information on reasonable grounds where our justification for doing so is our or your legitimate interests.

13.3 When making a request we require adequate proof of identity which will include providing a certified copy of your identity or registration document/s.

13.4 We will try to provide you with suitable means of accessing information, where you are entitled to it, by for example, posting or emailing it to you.

13.5 There may be instances where we cannot grant you access to your personal information. For example, if your access would interfere with the privacy of others or would result in a breach of confidentiality, we may need to refuse access. If we refuse access, we will give written reasons for our refusal.

13.6 If you believe that any personal information that we hold about you is inaccurate, irrelevant, outdated, incomplete or misleading, you may request us to correct it. If you believe that any personal information that we hold about you is excessive or has been unlawfully obtained or that we are no longer authorized to retain the information, you may request that we destroy or delete it. We will consider if the information requires correction, deletion or destruction and if we do not agree that there are grounds for action, you may request that we add a note to the personal information stating that you disagree with it.

13.7 We may charge a reasonable fee to cover our administrative and other reasonable costs in providing the information to you. We will not charge you for simply making the request or for us making any corrections to the personal information.

You also have the right to complain to the Information Regulator where you believe that we are not handling your personal information in accordance with the law. Complaints may be sent to the following email address: complaints.ir@justice.gov.za 

14 Unlawful access to your personal information

If you believe that your personal information has been unlawfully accessed or acquired, you may contact Smart Helpers Center’s Information Officer using the contact information below and provide details of the incident so that Smart Helpers Center can investigate it.

15 Changes to personal information

We are required to take steps to ensure that the personal information we hold is accurate, complete, relevant, not misleading and up to date. Should your personal information (or the personal information you provide) change, you must inform us and provide us with all changes as soon as reasonably possible to enable us to update the personal information.

16 Contact information 

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, or you wish to update your personal information or exercise any of your data subject rights you may contact Smart Helpers Center’s Information Officer at: POPIAInformationOfficer@Smarthelperscenter.co.za 

When contacting us, please provide your name and other identifying information that you know we have in connection with you and a means through which we may reply to you (preferably an email address) so that we can deal with your communication efficiently.