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Privacy Policy

Syafunda’s Privacy Policy details how Syafunda collects personal information from users, how this data is used and managed, and how it is secured.

Syafunda is committed to protecting the privacy of our users, in accordance with the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPI) and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). For this reason:

  • We never share identifiable user data with third parties.
  • We are explicit about what data we are collecting and what we intend to use it for. We only collect data that is necessary to provide an excellent educational service.
  • We always require consent from your institution to process data related to your users.
  • We only hold user data for the period that a user is legitimately registered to use our service.
  • We only use that data to make sure that your users are getting the most out of the platform.
  • We do not market to users under 18 years of age with the intention to sell.

Syafunda services where personal information is collected include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • the Syafunda Reader application
  • Syafunda ecommerce stores as well as various white labelled Syafunda stores developed for retail and publisher clients
  • Syafunda for Education platforms, including Syafunda Bookstore, Syafunda Online and Syafunda Digital Libraries

 

Syafunda collects consumer personal information from multiple online processes, including, but not limited to, the following:

  • Registering for any or all of the following services Syafunda Online, Syafunda Bookstore and Syafunda Digital Libraries
  • Subscribing to a newsletter
  • Submitting details via a form on our website, such as Contact Us or the chatbot in the bottom right corner of the screen
  • Submitting information via a ticket to info@syafunda.co.za
  • Providing details during procurement, deployment, rollout, training, and support processes or activities
  • Supplying information through the personalisation of a user account by a user, such as adding a photograph etc
  • Monitoring user access and habits via Syafunda Analytics
  • Sending or receiving emails, pertaining to marketing or general usage of the platform
  • Receiving notifications or other similar messages
  • Using third-party integrations (e.g. Google, Facebook and Microsoft) to sign in to a Syafunda account or to import users from any of our platforms

USES AND PROTECTION OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

The registration of a Syafunda user account constitutes consent from the user to share certain personal information for use by Syafunda. Personal information that is referred to here may be any of the following details:

  • name
  • email address
  • localisation
  • online identifiers
  • school and grade data
  • subject data
  • reading and usage data (including duration of activity, time of activity, type of activity etc)

This consent only extends to the legitimate purpose of providing support by the Syafunda team for the Syafunda service that the user has opted to use. Please read the Email communication section below for more details regarding direct communications from Syafunda.

Syafunda ensures adequate protection and management of personally identifiable information. We may use collected information to compile profiles for statistical purposes (analyse data for trends and statistics) and trade in these profiles. However, the individual user will always remain anonymous so no information contained in the profiles or statistics will be able to be linked to any specific user. Information collected about users through their use is the property of Blankett Tech (Pty) Ltd T/A Syafunda.

We respect your privacy. All the information collected will be kept strictly confidential and personal identifiers will not be disclosed without your express consent, except when a prior written agreement exists giving permission to share personal details, or when we are required to provide information in order to ensure compliance with any form of legal process or with any law.

EMAIL COMMUNICATION

Upon registering an account and making use of Syafunda services, the user may be added to a Syafunda mailing list through which Syafunda may periodically send pertinent information about the service. The registration of a Syafunda user account constitutes consent from the user to receive information pertaining to the service offering and new features from Syafunda.

Syafunda requires additional consent from users if they want to receive retail newsletters that include information about book deals, discounts and new releases. Users can opt-in voluntarily by subscribing to the Syafunda retail mailing list here, or choose to opt in via an invitation email sent immediately following the user account registration process. The opt-in will be at the user’s own discretion, and users will always reserve the right to opt-out of receiving newsletters from Syafunda.

SECURITY CAPABILITIES

Syafunda uses commercially reasonable security methods to protect your personal information. Your personal information will be stored in a database located behind multiple firewalls and accessible only to authorised personnel. We do not encrypt normal Web sessions, but any transmission to our servers of credit card or other Personal Information uses Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) software, which encrypts information that you input. Password and credit card information is stored in our database in an encrypted, non-human readable form.

In the event of a data breach which may put users at risk, Syafunda will immediately notify all relevant stakeholders and users.

STORING OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

We store information supplied by users in fully secured databases with restricted access. This information may be updated through our subscriber functions via billing@syafunda.co.za, one of the Syafunda e-commerce stores or a Syafunda platform. User data is stored for as long as a user account is registered with Syafunda. However, anonymous de-registered user information may be retained for high-level research purposes.

DISCLOSURE OF INFORMATION

 

Syafunda Cloud Services clients and client white-labelled e-commerce stores or Syafunda Reader applications also fall under the conditions of the Syafunda Privacy Policy. In this case, the user data is jointly owned by Syafunda and the specific client.

In order to provide the best possible and most relevant service, we may use standard technology to collect information about the use of Syafunda Cloud Services, the e-commerce stores and Syafunda Reader application to share with clients. This technology is not able to identify individual users but simply allows us to collect statistics. We will only ever disclose aggregate information about our user base. Aggregate information will never disclose who you are, but rather identifies the user population in general terms.