A. SCOPE
Our products and services are offered by SARPnet (Pty) Ltd. (collectively, “SARPnet,” “we,” “us,” or “our”).
This privacy policy applies to:
* sarpnet.org and its subdomains (our “Site”);
* our Software-as-a-Service on sheriff-software.co.za (collectively, “Platform,” “software,” “account,” or “service”) that incorporate this privacy policy;
* sarpnet.info (free email accounts), and
* any other products and services branded with the SARPnet name.
Special note:
Industry Specific
Because of the nature of the services we provide, we do not market our services to any other party than The Sheriff of the Court of South Africa. Only duly authorised and legally appointed Sheriff of the Court of South Africa can register for an account with us.
Personal Information
“Personal Information,” means information about an identifiable individual. That’s what this policy is about – our collection, protection, use, retention, disclosure and other processing of Personal Information and your rights relating to these activities specifically, we collect the following categories of personal information:
Sheriff Data (collectively, “Account Owner,” “Key Master,” “Administrator,” “Data Owner”, or “Our Client”)
- Contact Information (e.g., full name, phone and or mobile number, physical and or postal address, and email address);
- South African Identification Number, and or other government identification documents (e.g., ID, Driver’s License, Passport);
- Financial Information (e.g., bank account information, VAT Number – if applicable) as it should appear on Return of Service (Invoices);
- Appointed Jurisdiction Information (e.g., Jurisdiction Name, Service Area List, Court Appointment, Appointment Type (Permanent, Acting, Ad-Hoc);
- Website, Platform, and Email Usage Data (e.g., interactions with a website, software or email account);
- Login Information (e.g., SaaS Account, Email Account), for setup purposes (passwords should be changed by the user on first login);
The platform collect various other Personal Information to provide you and your business with the services. The Sheriff remain the Data Owner and all information entered into the platform belongs to the Sheriff. Private Information captured through the service is required to deliver the said service. Our Privacy Policy is based on the following ten fair information principles:
- Accountability
- Identifying purposes
- Consent
- Limiting collection
- Limiting use, disclosure, and retention
- Accuracy
- Safeguards
- Openness
- Individual access
- Challenging compliance
1. Accountability and Challenging compliance
SARPnet has named a Privacy Officer who is responsible for all things privacy at SARPnet. This includes our policies and procedures that are designed to keep your information safe. If you have any questions about our privacy practices or this policy, you can contact us at:
SARPnet (Pty) Ltd.
Privacy Officer
38 Ajax Road, 160 Olympus Country Estate, Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa, 0081
Email: privacy@sarpnet.info
2. Identifying Purposes
SARPnet collects, uses, discloses, and otherwise manages Personal Information in a variety of ways related to our Site and the services we provide. We’ve outlined these below. Your use of the services determines which information we collect and use.
SARPnet may collect, use, access, or store Personal Information for the purposes described below.
- In order to provide you with the services you request, which may include the following:
- We collect information directly from you when you use or interact with our Site or our services. This Personal Information may relate to you, your employees, your customers/clients, or cases.
- Our Site or services offer controlled and or restricted access to data relevant to a specific user. You should be aware that any information you provide in these areas may be read, collected, and used by those who have access to them. The Sheriff, as the key-master, decides who have access to what. – for example: Case information, the service rendered and the fees charged (Return of Service) can be viewed by your customer/client (Law Firm/Attorney), only if and when access is given to such Customer/Client. Access can be granted or revoked, only by the Sheriff (and or Sheriff Staff with rights to do so).
- To provide you with educational materials and guides relevant to the services you use.
- To contact you for the purposes of Service updates and system and account notifications.
- To provide you with support in connection with the services.
- We collect information and usage data whenever you or your client interact with the Platform/Software. This data may include who did what, and when you performed those actions. (Example: if an attorney log into the system and view a Return of Service – we collect the date and time of such action – in order to provide you “the Sheriff” with a read receipt)
How we Disclose Information.
We may disclose your information to other third parties with whom we have a written contract limiting the use and disclosure of your information. We may share your information to support the products and services you request. We do not sell your Personal Information to other companies.
For example:
- Responses to Legal Requests.
We may disclose your information when we have a good faith belief that such disclosure is required or permitted by law pursuant to a legal request. This may occur in connection with a court order, legal process, or other judicial, administrative or investigative proceeding that produces a request for information from us. In certain situations, we may be required to disclose your information in response to lawful requests by public authorities, including to meet national security or law enforcement requirements. - Protection of SARPnet and Others. We may disclose your information when we believe that disclosure is necessary to protect either your or our rights and safety. We may disclose your information to national, provincial, or local officials in order to, and only to the extent necessary, inform the official of activities that may constitute, or may have constituted, a violation of any criminal law or to assist the official in investigating or prosecuting a violation of criminal law.
- Service Providers. We may transfer (or otherwise make available) your personal information to third parties who provide services on our behalf. We have written agreements with our service providers that require them to utilize appropriate physical, technical, and administrative controls to protect personal information and prevent them from using personal information for any purpose other than performing the service they provide. For example, we may use service providers to host our platform, maintain physical hardware, monitor software security, or test & develop new features. Your Personal Information may be maintained and processed by these third parties in other jurisdictions. We use service providers in South Africa, India and the United States. When your information is in another jurisdiction, it will be subject to their laws. We only share the information these service providers need to perform the service and we don’t authorize them for any other use or disclosure of personal information.
- Persons Who Acquire Our Assets or Business.
If we sell or transfer any of our business or assets (including insolvency or bankruptcy proceedings), certain information about our clients may be a part of that sale or transfer. In the event such sale or transfer results in a material change to this privacy policy, we will notify you. The notification procedure will be the same as the procedure we use to notify you of a change to this Privacy Notice as described below. - Aggregate Data. We may disclose aggregate information compiled using information that does not identify you or your client individually or
personally. This may include, for example, the average combined Return ZAR value, the total number of Returns generated over a said period by province, or other statistical data for research. reporting or planning of new features purposes.
3. Consent
Submitting the Personal Information of Others
When you submit the Personal Information of your customers or case information on our platform, you are responsible for informing such customers and employees about SARPnet, and for obtaining any necessary consent or authority from them, including informing them that SARPnet operates within South Africa and other International Jurisdictions. All submitted information and access to such information is controlled and restricted and not in public domain.
Closing your SARPnet Account
At any time and without penalty, you can close your SARPnet account and stop using our services. Please ensure you complete the account closure process which includes a confirmation email. Otherwise, your account may not be closed.
4. Limiting Collection
SARPnet only collects the Personal Information necessary to provide the services to you. The services you use will determine most of the information SARPnet collects.
One of the services allow you to provide access to specific information on your account to other authorized users, which we call “your staff, and or customers/clients”. They have access to information in your account, including Personal Information, and may perform various tasks on your behalf. You take full responsibility for any collection, use or disclosure of your Personal Information by your staff and or customers/clients.
As the account owner and key-master, the Sheriff control these user(s) rights and roles. Access can be granted and or revoked by the Sheriff. The SARPnet platform will send a single email inviting them to a restricted area on your account. We only uses this information to invite your users. Please ensure that you only submit email addresses of individuals (Attorneys) or businesses (Law Firms) that you have a relationship with and who you would want to have access to the relevant data.
5. Limiting Use, Disclosure and Retention
We will use and disclose your Personal Information as described in this policy. Regardless of where a SARPnet employee and or contractor is physically located, your Personal Information is protected by the safeguards described in this Privacy Policy.
We will retain your information for the period necessary to fulfill the purposes outlined in this policy, unless a longer retention period is required by law. To be clear, that means we’ll retain your Personal Information while you have an active account, and afterward if we need to do so to meet our legal obligations. If you choose to close your SARPnet account, we will destroy your Personal Information within 120 days unless we are otherwise legally obliged to keep it longer consistent with our retention policies or if we determine it is necessary to defend against legal claims.
If your account is in good standing order and you wish to terminate all services indefinitely, we can provide you with a backup containing all Returns ever processed on your account (in electronic format – PDF), waive the 7 year retention clause and delete all personal & service data ever captured – this is a permanent deletion and can’t be restored (subject to a default 120 day waiting period).
6. Accuracy
SARPnet relies on you to provide us with information that is accurate and complete. We provide you the mechanisms and rely on you to keep your information up to date. You can request updates or corrections of any inaccuracies in your Personal Information at any time by contacting us at the contact information listed in the policy. We will respond to your request within a reasonable timeframe.
7. Safeguards
SARPnet uses a combination of reasonable and appropriate safeguards designed to protect your information. These safeguards are administrative controls (things like policies, procedures, and training), technical controls (things like encryption, firewalls, and secure coding frameworks), and physical controls (secured hosting environments). For additional details, please see our security page. Nevertheless, no method of transmission over the Internet or electronic storage is 100% secure. Therefore, we cannot guarantee absolute security.
We
ensure that any third party acting on our behalf maintains reasonable
and appropriate safeguards in respect of your Personal Information.
You are also responsible for helping to protect the security of your Personal Information. For instance, never give out your email account information or your password to third parties. Our team will never request your password, account information, credit card numbers or any payment information.