Privacy notice.

Who is responsible for your information.

Trevern Technologies builds websites, AI and automation for companies and groups. We are based in Cape Town, South Africa. We also do on-site work across the Western Cape.

The responsible party is Leo Liebenberg, trading as Trevern Technologies. Responsible party is the POPIA term for whoever decides why and how your information is used.

Trevern Technologies is a sole proprietorship. So a named person carries the duty, not a company. There is no separate legal person behind the name.

POPIA gives every business an Information Officer. Ours is Leo Liebenberg. The law makes the owner of a sole proprietorship the Information Officer, so the role cannot be handed to somebody else.

Our address is 1 Burton Road, Aurora, Durbanville, Cape Town, 7550, South Africa. Send formal notices to that address as well.

Email hello@trevern.com about anything in this notice. You can also phone +27 69 154 0753. A question, a request or a complaint all go to the same place.

What information we collect.

The contact form. The form asks for your name and your email address. The form takes your phone number too, if you choose to add one. We receive the message you write.

Email and WhatsApp. A message you send us carries your name and your contact details. The content of the message comes with it.

Client work. Work for a client needs the contact details of the people we deal with. Quotes, invoices, project notes and correspondence follow from that work.

Technical records. Our host records the usual web server data. Your IP address and the time of your visit are part of that data. Those records keep the website secure and online.

Analytics. We use Cloudflare Web Analytics, and Cloudflare adds the counting script as a page is served. The tool is cookieless. The tool shows page counts, the page you arrived from, a rough region and a device type. There are no personal identifiers, so we cannot pick you out. Visitors in the European Union are left out of the counting altogether.

We use no advertising trackers. We use no cookies for tracking. The cookies page sets out the detail.

Where the information comes from.

Nearly everything above comes from you. You send the form, the email or the message yourself.

Sometimes information reaches us another way. A colleague may pass on your work contact details. A client may give us the details of the people we must deal with.

Ask us where a specific record came from. We will tell you.

The kind of information we hold.

The information is ordinary business contact information. Names, email addresses, phone numbers and job titles are the usual categories. The message you send is held with them.

Client work adds work records. Quotes, invoices and project correspondence are the categories there.

POPIA treats some information as special. Health, religion, race, politics and biometrics are examples. We do not ask for special information, because the work does not need it.

This website takes no payments. So we hold no card details from this website.

Why we collect it, and what allows it.

Section 11 of POPIA lists the grounds that allow processing. Each use below has its own ground.

To answer you. An enquiry is a step towards a contract. Section 11 allows processing needed for that step.

To do the work. A contract needs the details of the people involved. Section 11 allows processing needed for a contract.

To keep records. Tax law requires records of what we invoice. Section 11 allows processing that a law requires.

To keep the website safe. Server records help us stop abuse. That is a legitimate interest under section 11.

Consent. Sometimes none of the grounds above fits. We then ask you first, and you are free to say no.

We never sell or rent your information to anyone. We never pass it on for somebody else to market to you.

Giving us your information is your choice.

Nothing on this website is compulsory. You choose whether to send the form at all.

Your name and your email address are needed for a reply. Leave those out and we cannot answer you. Your phone number is optional, and leaving it out changes nothing.

Client work is different. Some details are needed for the contract itself. Without those details we cannot do the work you asked for.

One record is a true must. Once we invoice you, tax law requires us to keep that record.

Laws that require or allow the collection.

POPIA sets the rules for handling personal information. Section 18 of POPIA is the reason this notice exists.

South African tax law requires us to keep records of what we invoice. That duty decides how long we keep financial records.

PAIA requires every private body to publish a manual. Ours is the PAIA manual.

We know of no other law that requires us to collect information from you.

Who else can see your information.

We do not sell your information. A short list of service providers can see it, because those providers run the tools we work with. Section 18 of POPIA requires us to name them.

• Cloudflare, Inc. — Website hosting, the contact form worker, and storage of submitted enquiries. Held in United States and a global edge network.
• Microsoft Corporation (Microsoft 365) — Business email — enquiries are delivered and replied to here. Held in European Union and United States.
• Meta Platforms, Inc. (WhatsApp Business Platform) — Where a client engagement uses WhatsApp messaging. Held in United States.

We use each provider under their own written terms. Those terms carry data protection duties.

We may also hand over information where the law requires it. A court order is the example. Nobody else gets your information.

Some information leaves South Africa.

The providers named above hold information outside South Africa. The United States and the European Union are the main places.

Section 72 of POPIA allows a transfer across the border under set conditions. One condition is a binding agreement with the party receiving the information.

We rely on the written terms of each provider. Those terms require protection in line with what POPIA expects.

Ask us where a specific record sits. We will find out and tell you.

How we protect what we hold.

Access is limited to the people who need access. Systems are kept updated, and data is backed up.

We keep as little as we can. Less information held is less information at risk.

Nobody can promise perfect security, and we will not pretend otherwise. What we can do is tell you what we actually do.

If information is exposed, we say so.

A security compromise means information got out, or somebody got in. Section 22 of POPIA says what has to happen next.

We must tell the Information Regulator. We must also tell every person affected. We do both as soon as we reasonably can.

The message says what happened, and what you can do about it. We then fix the cause, and we write down what went wrong.

You can report a security problem to us. The security page explains how.

No machine decides anything about you.

We build AI assistants for clients. An assistant drafts the work. A person approves anything the assistant is unsure of.

Section 71 of POPIA covers decisions made by automation alone. We make no such decision about anyone.

Nothing here scores you, ranks you or judges you by software. No automated step has a legal effect on a person.

The AI page sets out where AI sits in what we build.

We do not send marketing.

Sending us an enquiry is not consent to marketing. An enquirer goes on no mailing list.

Section 69 of POPIA restricts marketing by electronic message. We keep to that restriction.

If we ever start a mailing list, we will ask you first. You would opt in yourself, and you could leave at any time.

We do not collect a child’s information.

This website is for companies and groups. Neither the website nor the work is aimed at children.

Sections 34 and 35 of POPIA protect a child’s information. We do not knowingly collect information about a child.

Tell us if you think we hold a child’s information. We will delete that information.

You can see what we hold, and have it fixed.

Section 23 of POPIA gives you the right of access. You may ask what personal information we hold about you.

Section 24 of POPIA gives you the right to correct. You may ask us to fix information that is wrong. You may also ask us to delete information we should not be keeping.

Email hello@trevern.com with what you need. We answer as soon as we reasonably can, and we charge you nothing.

We may ask you to prove who you are first. That check protects your own information.

A formal request for a record can also go through PAIA. The PAIA manual explains how, and the fees there are the ones set in the PAIA regulations.

Sometimes the law stops us deleting a record. A tax record is the example. We will say so plainly, and we will say which law.

You can object to how we use your information.

Section 11(3) of POPIA gives you the right to object. The right applies where we rely on our own legitimate interests.

Email hello@trevern.com to object. Say what you object to, and why you object.

We stop that use, unless the law requires us to carry on. We write back to you either way.

You can complain to the Information Regulator.

Tell us first if you think we mishandled your information. We would rather put it right than argue about it.

You can complain to the Information Regulator (South Africa) at any point. You do not need our permission to do that.

Complaints about personal information go to POPIAComplaints@inforegulator.org.za. Complaints about access to records go to PAIAComplaints@inforegulator.org.za. General questions go to enquiries@inforegulator.org.za.

You can also lodge a complaint on the online complaints portal.

The office is at Woodmead North Office Park, 54 Maxwell Drive, Woodmead, Johannesburg, 2191. Phone 010 023 5200, or use the toll free line on 0800 017 160. The website is inforegulator.org.za.

When we build for a client, we are the operator.

Some tools we build hold information about our clients’ customers. A booking system is one example. That information is names, contact details and bookings.

In POPIA terms, our client is the responsible party. We are the operator.

Sections 20 and 21 of POPIA set an operator’s duties. An operator acts only on the client’s instruction. An operator must keep the information secure, and must report a compromise to the client.

We do that work under a written operator agreement. We treat customer information the way this notice treats your own.

Are you a customer of one of our clients? Ask that business about your information first. Write to us as well, and we will point you the right way.

How long we keep information.

An enquiry that does not become work is kept for 12 months. We delete that enquiry afterwards.

We keep client records for as long as we work together. Those records are quotes, invoices, project notes and correspondence.

Financial records last longer, because tax law says so. We keep those records 5 years after the end of the tax year they relate to.

We delete what we no longer need. Ask us to delete something sooner, and we will do that where the law allows.

Our other documents.

• PAIA manual — how to ask for a record we hold, and who to ask.
• Cookies and tracking — what this website stores on your device.
• Website terms of use — the terms you accept by using this website.
• Security and disclosure — how we protect what we hold, and how to report a problem.
• How we use AI — where AI sits in the work, and what a person always checks.

If this notice changes, the change is obvious here.

If the way we handle personal information changes, this notice changes too. The effective date at the top moves as well.

We will not quietly weaken this notice. A new kind of information, or a new purpose, is a change that matters. We make any change that matters obvious on this page.