The Protection of Personal Information Act (or POPI Act) is South Africa’s equivalent of the EU GDPR.

The Act applies to any person or organisation who keeps any type of records relating to the personal information of anyone, unless those records are subject to other legislation which protects such information more stringently.

It therefore sets the minimum standards for the protection of personal information. It regulates the “processing” of personal information. “Processing” includes collecting, receiving, recording, organizing, retrieving, or using such information; or disseminating, distributing or making such personal information available. 

The Act will also relate to records which are already in the possession of the entity or person doing the processing. 

This depends on which of our services you use, so let’s break it down:

• Our website: When you register an account, you add your information onto our website. This information is securely stored on our servers and is only accessible based on the conditions mentioned below.
• Our CRM: We have a custom built CRM that allows us to manage our customers, bookings, vouchers, sign-over sheets, training sign-ins, scheduled drives, etc. Our CRM makes use of the same state-of-the-art servers that keep our main website secure.
• Physical forms: Forms such as manual booking forms, Daycare forms, or pet sign-over forms are filed and stored in our secure file room located at our Devonshire Ave Branch.
• Phone calls: All phone cals made to any of our contact numbers are recorded and saved on our VoIP Servers

Each of the sections mentioned above have their own storage policies:

• Our website: On our website, information storage duration depends on activity. Our policy is that if you have not been active on our website for more than 18 months, your profile along with all your pet's information is deleted from our website and purged from our databases. Your activity on our website is based on the last time you successfully logged into our website, as we do not have any other means of tracking your activity on our website.
• Our CRM: Once your information has been removed from our main website, we mark your account on our CRM as inactive. It will remain in this inactive state for a period not exceeding 2 years. In the event that you have been blacklisted by us as a result of non-payment, or any of our blacklisting policies, your information will retained for a minimum period of 10 years, however, the information may be kept infinitely. 
• Physical forms: All printed documentation is kept for a minimum period of 5 years, after which the documentation is placed in a furness and burnt.
• Phone calls: Each call both incoming and outgoing is recorded. Each recording is stored and retained for 3 months before the recording file is deleted.

We have always been very careful who we share information with. We do not share any information with any advertising agencies, or any party that does not directly affect our services.

• Our staff: For our staff to perform their duties as required, they have access to your information using company supplied laptops and / or mobile phones.
• Altitude Media: Our I.T and technical partner, Altitude Media, is responsible for the continued development of our platforms, as well as general I.T. support. Altitude Media has signed a Non-disclosure agreement, and no Animal Think Tank information gets shared from Altitude Media.
• Intellihost: Intellihost hosts and stores data for clients as part of their service offering to each individual client. Clients have access to their own product, being web hosting, cloud server, servers or backups, and have the ability to add and manage data and / or files to their product, which is secure on a per product basis, thus each clients service is not accessible by others. Intellihost staff have access to servers and in some cases have access to data which is part of the product of the client, however, Intellihost does not handle or manipulate any data of a client unless explicitly requested. Intellihost also has a non-disclosure agreement signed with each staff member and / or 3rd party such as our external network management team.
• Our accountants: Professional Accounting Services and Wilkos Consulting may from time to time access information relating to accounts for the purposes of following up on outstanding payments, VAT calculations, and any financial related services.

As part of providing you with the best possible service, we have to make use of third-party providers and provide them with some of your information, however, this information is far more limited than what you supply and is only accessed by Animal Think Tank staff and Altitude Media.

Loyverse: Loyverse is the Point of Sale system that we use to process on-site sales. The information saved on Loyverse is kept completely privatised behind a 256-bit encrypted server. 

Yoco: Yoco is our payment partner for both on-site card payments, as well as online payments. As they function as a bank, they follow the same strict data enforcement policies that is required by banks in South Africa.

QuickBooks: We use QuickBooks Online to manage our accounting and VAT. Thus all purchases and customer info is loaded onto Quickbooks. No-one at QuickBooks has access to or the ability to manipulate any of the information. In the odd event that QuickBooks requires access to our profile for technical assistance, their actions are supervised by an Animal Think Tank staff member. Furthermore as part of the contractual agreement with QuickBooks, no information is shared or accessed without explicit permission from Animal Think Tank.

Google: We use Google for several services including (but not limited to): Google Workspace for emails calendar and contacts, Google Analytics for monitoring website usage and statistics, Google my Business for managing our business listing and replying to reviews, Google Maps for navigating to your address for collections and drop-offs.

Apple: For the staff that use Apple devices, your contact information may be saved in their iCloud service (i.e. Apple Mail, Contacts, Calendar), as well as using their Maps service for navigating to and from your property for collections, drop-offs and home grooms.

Voys: Voys Telecom is our telecommunications provider, so all phone calls, phone numbers as well as our call recordings are securely stored on Voys Telecom's servers

Send in Blue: Send in Blue is our mass mailing provider. Any newsletters or notices that are sent out are sent from Send in Blue. This is an opt-in service, meaning that we do not send any information to you, our customer, without your approval.

The Courier Guy: If you purchased a product through TTouch Tools, we make use of The Courier Guy to deliver your parcel straight to your door. Currently The Courier Guy has some security issues relating to their online platform, so as a result we keep only the bare minimum of information on their servers, and remove the information as soon as the parcel has been delivered. The Courier Guy is working on increasing their security on their website.

We may store some or all of the information listed below. You can request what information we have on file for you at any time. The list below is for indicative purposes only, and may not include all elements.

Our main website

• Your name & surname
• Your email address
• Your contact number
• Your ID number / Citizenship information
• Secondary contact name
• Secondary contact number
• Pet names
• Pet breed
• Pet medical information
• Pet microchip number
• Your physical address
• Your preferred veterinary practice

Our CRM

• Your name & surname
• Your email address
• Your contact number
• Secondary contact name
• Secondary contact number
• Pet names
• Pet breed
• Your physical address
• Your preferred veterinary practice

Loyverse

• Your name & surname
• Your email address
• Your contact number
• Part of your card number for authorisation

Yoco

• Your name & surname
• Your email address
• Your contact number
• Your card information (Please note that this information is not accessible to anyone at Yoco, Animal Think Tank, or it's third party providers)

QuickBooks

• Your name & surname
• Your email address
• Your contact number
• Your physical address

Google

• Your name & surname
• Your email address
• Your contact number
• Your physical address

Apple

• Your name & surname
• Your email address
• Your contact number
• Your physical address

Voys

• Your contact number
• Call recordings

Send in Blue

• Your name & surname
• Your email address

The Courier Guy

• Your name & surname
• Your email address
• Your contact number
• Your physical address

At your discretion, you may request at any time for Animal Think Tank to remove all your information from our systems. To do so, please send an email to legal@attgroup.co.za to request the removal. There are, however, some limitations:

• If you have been blacklisted, your information will be kept for legal reasons
• All financial transactions and information related to that will be kept for tax and VAT purposes, but the information will be deleted once the financial year has been closed.
•  All email correspondence will be kept for legal reasons.

You may also request a breakdown of all information that we have stored, what has been deleted, and what will be scheduled for deletion.

The POPI Act requires businesses to have an allocated compliance officer for any queries, complaints or information.

Our Compliance Officer:

Owen Zaayman
owen@attgroup.co.za | legal@attgroup.co.za
+27 (11) 463-0296