GTAC Privacy Policy

These are the standard privacy policy for The Government Technical Advisory Centre (GTAC) Website.

Background

Section 14 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996, provides that everyone has the right to privacy, the right to privacy includes a right to protection against the unlawful collection retention, dissemination and use of personal information. The Protection of Personal Information Act (“POPIA”) is South Africa’s data protection law.

Purpose

POPIA is intended to promote the protection of personal information processed by public and private bodies and establish minimum requirements for the processing of personal information in a context-sensitive manner. This Policy is intended to facilitate the responsible processing of personal information received by the GTAC in accordance to the right to privacy of data subjects (employees, service providers and other stakeholders).

Applicability

As a government component, GTAC is necessarily involved in the processing of the personal information of employees, service providers and other stakeholders for administrative and other purposes. In accordance with the provisions of POPIA, GTAC is committed to effectively managing, collecting, handling and disposing of personal information.

GTAC Website Privacy policy

We know that you care about your personal data and how it is used, and it’s important to us that you trust that the Government Technical Advisory Centre (GTAC) uses your personal data with the utmost care. Our privacy policy outlined here will help you understand what personal data we collect, why we collect it and what we do with it. By using the GTAC website are agreeing to the terms of this privacy policy.

What is personal information?

Personal information is information which identifies you as an individual, including but not limited to, your name and contact details. GTAC does not collect personal information about you, except when you provide it to us.

How do we collect information about you?

We may collect personal data from a variety of sources. This includes:

  • Personal data you give us directly,
  • Personal data we collect automatically, and

Personal data we collect from other sources.

This definition includes personal data collected through telephone calls, and online through our website and online training, workshops and webinars. In these instances, we do our best to make sure that you are aware of the information collected which relates to you, as well as the purpose for which that information is collected.

What we do with your information

The information you provide to GTAC will be processed purely for the purposes explained at the point of collection.

If you subscribe to our newsletter, we accept this as consent for GTAC to use your personal information for marketing communication purposes. Each time we share news or marketing information by e-mail, you will have the option to unsubscribe from receiving further information from us.

We will not sell your name, email address, or any other personal information to any third party. We will not disclose information about our clients to third parties except where:

  • It is part of providing a service to you – e.g. if it is vital to work carried out by a trusted

long term advisor for the execution of a project.

  • We have consent to share information publicly for marketing and PR purposes.

We may disclose any information, including personal information, we deem necessary, in our sole discretion, to comply with any applicable law, regulation, legal process or governmental request.

Cookies
If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.

If you have an account and you log in to this site, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.

When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.

If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.

Embedded content from other websites
Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website. These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

How long we retain your data
If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognise and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.

For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.

What rights you have over your data
If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.

Where we send your data
Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.

Who is responsible for compliance?

The Head of GTAC. The Head of GTAC is automatically deemed to be the Information Officer in accordance with the provisions of POPIA but may delegate their duties to a Deputy Information Officer(s).

Duties of the Information Officer are as follows:

  • the encouragement of compliance by the school with the conditions for the lawful processing of personal information;
  • dealing with requests made to the school pursuant to POPIA;
  • working with the Information Regulator in relation to investigations conducted pursuant to

Chapter 6 of POPIA (Prior Authorisation) in relation to the GTAC;

  • ensuring that a compliance framework is developed, implemented, monitored and

maintained;

  • monitoring and implementing Codes of Conduct issued by the Information Regulator; and
  • otherwise ensuring compliance by the GTAC with the provisions of POPIA.
  1. All employees

Both permanent and temporary staff, staff working on a contract basis for the GTAC, volunteers, service providers contracted by GTAC and others who are authorised to access personal data held by the GTAC.

iii. All contractors, suppliers and other persons acting on behalf of the organisation.

How we protect the information we process

We have implemented privacy policies and security controls to protect the personal information we collect and to provide for the use of that information within GTAC.

We take every effort to protect your personal data from misuse, interference, loss, unauthorised access, modification, or disclosure.

Our measures include implementing appropriate access controls, investing in the latest technology and software to protect the IT environments we use, and ensuring we encrypt personal data wherever possible.

How long will we keep your data?

We will keep your personal data for as long as we need it for the purpose it is being processed for. While we do our best to make sure that the personal information we hold about you is accurate, and will assume that in the absence of evidence to the contrary, the information you provide us with is accurate. We will provide you with access to your personal information so that you may view, update, or correct your information (please see below under heading “Access rights”). To protect your privacy, we will also take steps to verify your identity before granting you access to your personal information.

You may also update or correct your personal information held by GTAC by writing to us at info@gtac.gov.za.

Events

Our website contains event listings. We collect your personal information as part of the event registration process. This information is used solely for event planning and implementation purposes. At the point of registration, we will make you aware of the information collected which relates to you, as well as the purpose for which that information is collected.

Links

Our website contains links to other websites that belong to third parties. We do not control the privacy practices of these other sites.

Changes to the policy

We reserve the right, at our sole discretion, to modify, add or remove sections of this privacy policy at any time and any changes will be communicated to you using the details you provided to us. If you continue to use this website, we take that as your acceptance of these terms.

Access rights

You have a right to access the personal data we hold about you. If you wish to see this information, please contact us at info@gtac.gov.za.

Privacy queries

If you have any questions regarding this privacy policy, or you wish to update your details or remove your personal data from our records, please contact us at info@gtac.gov.za.

Which laws apply

This privacy policy will be governed by the POPIA (Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013) and laws of South Africa. You consent to the jurisdiction of the South African courts for any dispute which may arise out of this privacy policy.