The privacy of your data — and it is your data, not ours! — is a big deal to us. In this policy, we lay out: what data we collect and why; how your data is handled; and your rights to your data. We promise we never sell your data: never have, never will.
This policy applies to all products and services built and maintained by Depicta (Pty) Ltd, including the depicta.co.za website, physical order processing, and any other service or website we might operate.
What we collect and why
Depicta is in the education industry (not advertising industry) and our guiding principle is to collect only what we need. Here’s what that means in practise:
Identity & access
When you purchase our products or sign up for one of our services, we typically ask for identifying information such as your name, email address, delivery address (for physical orders) and maybe a company name. That’s so that your orders can be delivered to you, you can gain the necessary functionality of our services, we can send you invoices, order updates, or send you other essential information. Your information, and any additional identifying details provided to us, will never be sold to third parties, never used for unsollicited advertising and marketing, nor used for any other purpose other than to obtain the necessary functionality for which it was provided. We use the latest, and most stringent, security and encryption practises in order to secure your information.
Billing information
When you pay for an order or Depicta service, we ask for your credit card and billing address. That’s so we can charge you for the order or service, and send you invoices. If you pay by credit or cheque card, your card details are passed directly to our payment processor and doesn’t ever go through our servers. We store a record of the payment transaction, including the last 4 digits of the card number and as-of billing address, for account history, invoicing, and billing support. We store your billing address to detect fraudulent credit card transactions, and to print on your invoices.
Geolocation data
We might log access to our websites by full IP address so that we can verify no unauthorized access has happened. This is a standard practise of websites and internet services.
Web analytics data — described further in the Website Interactions section — are also tied to IP addresses to assist with troubleshooting cases.
Website interactions
When you browse our websites, your browser automatically shares certain information such as which operating system and browser version you are using. We track that information, along with the pages you are visiting, page load timing, and which website referred you for statistical purposes like conversion rates and to test new designs. We sometimes track specific link clicks to help inform some design decisions. These web analytics data are tied to your IP address and user account if applicable and you are signed into our Services.
Cookies and Do Not Track
We do use persistent first-party cookies to store certain preferences, make it easier for you to use our services, and support some in-house analytics. A cookie is a piece of text stored by your browser to help it remember your login information, site preferences, and more. You can adjust cookie retention settings in your own browser. To learn more about cookies, including how to view which cookies have been set and how to manage and delete them, please visit: www.allaboutcookies.org.
At this time, our sites and services do not respond to Do Not Track beacons sent by browser plugins.
Voluntary correspondence
When you write Depicta with a question or to ask for help, we keep that correspondence, including the email address, so that we have a history of past correspondences to reference if you reach out in the future.
We also store any information you volunteer like surveys. Sometimes when we do customer interviews, we may ask for your permission to record the conversation for future reference or use. We only do so if you give your express consent.
Information we do not collect
We don’t collect any characteristics of protected classifications including age, race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression. You may provide these data voluntarily, such as if you include a pronoun preference in your email signature when writing into our Support team.
We also do not collect any biometric data.
When we access or share your information
Our default practise is to not access your information. The only times we’ll ever access or share your info are:
To provide products or services you’ve requested. We do use some third-party technical services to run our services and only to the extent necessary process some or all of your personal information via these third parties.
To help you troubleshoot or squash a software bug, with your permission. If at any point we need to access your account to help you with a Support case, we will ask for your consent before proceeding.
To investigate, prevent, or take action regarding restricted uses. Accessing a customer’s account when investigating potential abuse is a measure of last resort. We have an obligation to protect the privacy and safety of both our customers and the people reporting issues to us. We do our best to balance those responsibilities throughout the process. If we do discover you are using our products for a restricted purpose, we will report the incident to the appropriate authorities.
When required under applicable law. If the appropriate law enforcement authorities have the necessary warrant, criminal subpoena, or court order requiring we share data, we have to comply. Otherwise, we flat-out reject requests from local and federal law enforcement when they seek data. And unless we’re legally prevented from it, we’ll always inform you when such requests are made.
If Depicta (Pty) Ltd or any of our services is acquired by or merged with another company we’ll notify you well before any info about you is transferred and becomes subject to a different privacy policy.
Location of Site and Data
Our products and other web properties are stored on secure servers in South Africa, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Any information you provide to us will be transferred to one or more of these secure servers. By using our Site, participating in any of our services and/or providing us with your information, you consent to this transfer.
Your Rights With Respect to Your Information
At Depicta, we apply the same data rights to all customers, regardless of their location. Currently some of the most privacy-forward regulations in place are the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) and California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) in the US. Depicta recognizes all of the rights granted in these regulations, except as limited by applicable law. These rights include:
Right to Know. You have the right to know what personal information is collected, used, shared or sold. We outline both the categories and specific bits of data we collect, as well as how they are used, in this privacy policy.
Right of Access. This includes your right to access the personal information we gather about you, and your right to obtain information about the sharing, storage, security and processing of that information.
Right to Correction. You have the right to request correction of your personal information.
Right to Erasure / “To be Forgotten”. This is your right to request, subject to certain limitations under applicable law, that your personal information be erased from our possession and, by extension, all of our service providers. Fulfillment of some data deletion requests may prevent you from using Depicta services because our services may then no longer work. In such cases, a data deletion request may result in closing your account.
Right to Complain. You have the right to make a complaint regarding our handling of your personal information with the appropriate supervisory authority. To identify your specific authority or find out more about this right, EU individuals should go to https://edpb.europa.eu/about-edpb/board/members_en.
Right to Restrict Processing. This is your right to request restriction of how and why your personal information is used or processed, including opting out of sale of personal information. (Again: we never have and never will sell your personal data).
Right to Object. You have the right, in certain situations, to object to how or why your personal information is processed.
Right to Portability. You have the right to receive the personal information we have about you and the right to transmit it to another party.
Right to not be subject to Automated Decision-Making. You have the right to object and prevent any decision that could have a legal, or similarly significant, effect on you from being made solely based on automated processes. This right is limited, however, if the decision is necessary for performance of any contract between you and us, is allowed by applicable law, or is based on your explicit consent.
Right to Non-Discrimination. This right stems from the CCPA. We do and will not charge you a different amount to use our products, offer you different discounts, or give you a lower level of customer service because you have exercised your data privacy rights. However, the exercise of certain rights (such as the right “to be forgotten”) may, by virtue of your exercising those rights, prevent you from using our Services.
If you have questions about exercising these rights or need assistance, please contact us at privacy@depicta.co.za. To identify your specific authority to file a complaint or find out more about GDPR, EU individuals should go to https://edpb.europa.eu/about-edpb/board/members_en.
How we secure your data
All data is encrypted via SSL/TLS when transmitted from our servers to your browser. The database backups are also encrypted. Most data are not encrypted while they live in our database (since it needs to be ready to send to you when you need it), but we go to great lengths to secure your data at rest.
When you request the deletion of your data
Anything you request to be deleted might be kept in an accessible trash can for up to 30 days. After that, the data will be completely deleted. We also have some backups of our databases, which could be kept for up to another 30 days.
We also delete your data after an account is cancelled. In this case, there is no period of data being kept in an accessible trash can so your data are purged within 60 days. This applies both for cases when an account owner directly cancels and for auto-cancelled accounts.
Changes & questions
We may update this policy as needed to comply with relevant regulations and reflect any new practises.
Have any questions, comments, or concerns about this privacy policy, your data, or your rights with respect to your information? Please get in touch by emailing us at privacy@depicta.co.za and we’ll be happy to answer them!