Privacy & Cookies Policy

The Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013 (“POPI”) came into complete commencement on 1 July 2021, in this regard we have a number of obligations and duties in terms of POPI that we must comply with. The protection of your personal information is a high priority for us and we have taken steps to ensure that your personal information is protected and remains private.

In addition to this document serving as our privacy policy, this document will also serve as our data subject notification as contemplated in section 18 of POPI. In this regard, this document will inform you of what personal information we collect, why we collect it, how we use it and what safety measures are in place to protect it.

Where we refer to “process”, it means how we collect, use, store, make available, destroy, update, disclose, or otherwise deal with your personal information. As a general rule we will only process your personal information if this is required to deliver or offer a service, provide a product or carry out a transaction.

We may combine your personal information and use the combined personal information for any of the purposes stated in this Privacy Policy.

In this document any reference to “we” or “us” or “our” is reference to Simpsons Attorneys Inc.

If you use our services, goods and/or products, you agree that we may process your personal information as explained under this Privacy Policy.

We may change this Privacy Policy from time to time if the law or our business practices requires it.

The version of the Privacy Policy displayed on our website at the time of your interaction with us will be applicable.

What is personal information? 

Personal information refers to any information that identifies you or specifically relates to you. Personal information includes, but is not limited to, the following information about you:

Is the supply of personal information voluntary or mandatory? 

Some of the personal information we collect from you is mandatory. This means that we are legally required to collect and process this information in order to comply with our statutory obligations, or because we need the information to enter into or maintain a business relationship with you. If you do not provide this mandatory information, we will not be able to comply with our legal obligations or deliver our products and/or services to you. In these circumstances, we will be unable to do business with you.

We collect and process mandatory personal information as required by various legislation, including but not limited to:

• Basic Conditions of Employment Act, No. 75 of 1997
• Continuing Education and Training Act, No. 16 of 2006
• Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act, No. 130 of 1993
• Credit Agreements Act, No. 75 of 1980
• Criminal Procedure Act, No. 51 of 1977
• Debt Collectors Act, No. 114 of 1998
• Employment Equity Act, No. 55 of 1998
• Financial Intelligence Centre Act, No. 38 of 2001
• Higher Education Act, No. 101 of 1997
• Income Tax Act, No. 58 of 1962
• Labour Relations Act, No. 66 of 1995
• National Credit Act, No. 34 of 2005
• National Qualifications Framework Act, No. 67 of 2008
• Pension Funds Act, No. 24 of 1956
• Skills Development Act, No. 97 of 1998
• Unemployment Insurance Act, No. 63 of 2001
• Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services Act, No. 37 of 2002
• Occupational Health and Safety Act, No. 85 of 1993
• Prevention of Organised Crime Act, No. 121 of 1998

In other instances, the supply of personal information is voluntary. This means there is no law requiring you to provide the information. However, we may still need the information to provide certain products and/or services to you, improve our service offering, or communicate effectively with you. If you choose not to provide voluntary personal information, we may not be able to deliver certain services or may be limited in how we engage with you.

At the time we collect personal information from you, we will indicate whether the information is mandatory or voluntary, as well as the consequences of not supplying it.

When will we process your personal information? 

We will only process your personal information for lawful purposes relating to our business if the following applies:

• if you have consented thereto.
• if a person legally authorised by you, the law, or a court, has consented thereto.
• if it is necessary to conclude or perform under a contract, we have with you.
• if the law requires or permits it.
• if it is required to protect or pursue your, our or a third party’s legitimate interest.

What is special personal information? 

Special personal information is personal information about the following:

When will we process your special personal information? 

We may process your special personal information in the following circumstances:

• if you have consented to the processing.
• if the information is being used for any Human resource or payroll requirement.
• if the processing is needed to create, use, or protect a right or obligation in law.
• if the processing is for statistical or research purposes and all legal conditions are met.
• if the special personal information was made public by you.
• if the processing is required by law.
• if racial information is processed, and the processing is required to identify you; and / or if health information is processed, and the processing is to determine your insurance risk, or to comply with an insurance policy or to enforce an insurance right or obligation.

When and from where we obtain personal information about you? 

We may collect personal information about you from various sources, depending on how you interact with us and the nature of our relationship with you. These sources include:

• Personal information collected directly from you.
• Personal information obtained from a public record.
• Personal information collected from areas where you have deliberately made your information public.
• Information gathered from your use of our products, services, websites or other service channels.
• Information collected when you engage or communicate with us, including through our support desk, emails, letters, telephone calls, online interactions, or surveys.
• Personal information obtained from a third party.
• Personal information obtained from other sources with your consent, where applicable.

Where required by law, we will obtain your consent before collecting personal information about you from third parties.

We may obtain your personal information from third parties such as (but not limited to):

• Our business partners for any purposes set out in this Privacy Policy.
• Your spouse, dependants, partners, employer, or other similar sources.
• Attorneys, tracing agents, debt collectors, or other persons assisting with the enforcement of agreements.
• Payment processing service providers, merchants, banks, and other parties involved in processing payment instructions (including EFT partners).
• Insurers, brokers, financial institutions, or other organisations involved in underwriting, issuing, or administering insurance or assurance products, as well as assessing related claims.
• Law enforcement authorities, fraud prevention agencies, and other bodies tasked with the prevention, detection, or prosecution of crime.
• Regulatory bodies, industry ombudsmen, governmental departments, and local or international tax authorities.
• Trustees, executors or curators appointed by a court of law.
• Our service providers, agents, and sub-contractors, such as couriers and others who assist us in delivering products or services to you.
• Courts of law or tribunals.

Reasons we need to process your personal information. 

We process your personal information for purposes that are lawful, legitimate, and necessary for our business operations. These purposes include, but are not limited to, the following:

• To provide you with our products, goods, and services.
• To market our products, goods, and services to you (in accordance with applicable direct marketing requirements).
• To respond to your enquiries, requests, and complaints.
• To comply with legislative, regulatory, risk and compliance requirements (including directives, sanctions, rules, voluntary or involuntary codes of conduct, industry agreements, reporting obligations, and information requests).
• To conduct market and behavioural research, including profiling, scoring, and analysis to determine whether you qualify for certain products or services, or to assess credit or insurance-related risks.
• To develop, test, enhance, and improve our products, services, and business processes.
• For historical, statistical, analytical, or research purposes, including market segmentation.
• To process payment instruments and payment instructions.
• To create, manufacture, prepare, or print payment-related items (such as statements or payslips).
• To enable us to deliver goods, documents, communications, or notices to you.
• For security purposes, identity verification, fraud detection, and to verify the accuracy of your personal information.
• To communicate with you and to carry out your instructions or requests.
• For customer satisfaction surveys, promotional activities, and feedback initiatives.
• For insurance and assurance underwriting, administration, and related operational activities.
• To process, consider, or assess insurance or assurance claims.
• To provide insurance or assurance products, policies, and services.
• To enable your participation in customer loyalty or rewards programmes, including determining your eligibility, allocating and managing points, assessing your buying behaviour relevant to the programme, and sharing necessary information with programme partners where applicable.
• To enable you to use value-added products and services.
• To assess our lending, financial, operational, or insurance risks.
• For any other purposes related to the above, or for any other lawful purpose for which the personal information was supplied.

How we use your personal information for marketing 

• We will use your personal information to our products and services to you.
• We will do this in person, by post, telephone, or electronic channels such as SMS, email, and fax.
• If you are not our customer, or in any other instances where the law requires, we will only market to you by electronic communications with your consent.
• In all cases you can request us to stop sending marketing communications to you at any time.

When how and with whom we share your personal information? 

We only share your personal information when it is lawful and appropriate to do so. In general, we will share your personal information only if one or more of the following apply:

• You have given your consent.
• The sharing is necessary to conclude or perform a contract we have with you.
• The law requires or permits us to share the information.
• The sharing is necessary to protect or pursue a legitimate interest of yours, ours, or that of a third party.

We may share your personal information with, among others, our service providers, business partners, regulatory bodies, financial institutions, insurers, and other authorised third parties—only for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy and only to the extent necessary for them to perform their duties.

Under what circumstances will we transfer your personal information to other countries?

Your personal information may be transferred to and processed in another country. We will only transfer your personal information to third parties outside South Africa if one or more of the following apply:

• The personal information will be adequately protected under the receiving country’s data protection laws or through a binding agreement with the third-party recipient.
• The transfer is necessary to enter into or perform a contract with you, or to perform a contract with a third party where the transfer is in your interest.
• You have consented to the transfer.
• It is not reasonably practicable to obtain your consent, but the transfer is in your best interest.

All cross-border transfers will take place in accordance with POPIA’s requirements and with appropriate safeguards in place. Wherever possible, we will ensure that the party receiving your personal information in another country agrees to apply a level of protection that is substantially similar to the protections available under South African law. If the other country’s laws provide stronger protections, those protections will be applied.

How we secure your personal information 

• We will take appropriate and reasonable technical and organisational steps to protect your personal information according to industry best practices. Our security measures (including physical, technological, and procedural safeguards) will be appropriate and reasonable. This includes the following:
• keeping our systems secure (like monitoring access and usage);
• storing our records securely.
• controlling the access to our buildings, systems and/or records; and
• safely destroying or deleting records.
• Ensure compliance with best practice standards.

How long do we keep your personal information? 

We will keep your personal information for as long as:

• the law requires us to keep it.
• a contract between you and us requires us to keep it.
• you have consented for us keeping it.
• we are required to keep it to achieve the purposes listed in this Privacy Policy.
• we require it for statistical or research purposes.
• a code of conduct requires us to keep it; and / or
• we require it for our lawful business purposes.

Take note: We may keep your personal information even if you no longer have a relationship with us, for the historical data that may be required by your employer or employee.

Our cookie policy 

A cookie is a small piece of data sent from our websites or applications to your computer or device hard drive or Internet browser where it is saved. The cookie contains information to personalise your experience on our websites or applications and may improve your experience on the websites or applications. The cookie will also identify your device, like the computer or smart phone.

By using our websites or applications you agree that cookies may be forwarded from the relevant website or application to your computer or device. The cookie will enable us to know that you have visited the website or application before and will identify you. We may also use the cookie to prevent fraud and for analytics.

Your duties and rights about the personal information we have about you.

You must provide proof of identity when enforcing the rights below.

You must inform us when your personal information changes.

Please contact our Information Officer to give effect to any of the below rights.

You have the right to request access to the personal information we have about you by contacting us. This includes requesting:

• confirmation that we hold your personal information.
• a copy or description of the record containing your personal information; and
• the identity or categories of third parties who have had access to your personal information.

We will attend to requests for access to personal information within a reasonable time. You may be required to pay a reasonable fee to receive copies or descriptions of records, or information about third parties. We will inform you of the fee before attending to your request.

Please note that the law may limit your right to access information.

You have the right to request us to correct or delete the personal information we have about you if it is inaccurate, irrelevant, excessive, out of date, incomplete, misleading, obtained unlawfully or we are no longer authorised to keep it. You must inform us of your request in writing. It may take up to 15 business days for the change to reflect on our systems. We may request documents from you to verify the change in personal information.

A specific agreement that you have entered into with us may determine how you must change your personal information provided at the time when you entered into the specific agreement. Please adhere to these requirements. If the law requires us to keep the personal information, it will not be deleted upon your request. The deletion of certain personal information may lead to the termination of your business relationship with us.

You may object on reasonable grounds to the processing of your personal information.

We will not be able to give effect to your objection if the processing of your personal information was and is permitted by law; you have provided consent to the processing and our processing done according to your consent or the processing is necessary to conclude or perform under a contract with you.

Where you have provided your consent for the processing of your personal information, you

may withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we will explain the consequences to you. We may proceed to process your personal information even if you have withdrawn your consent if the law permits or requires it. It may take up to 15 business days for the change to reflect on our systems, during this time we may still process your personal information. You must inform us of any objection in writing.

You have a right to file a complaint with us or any Regulator with jurisdiction about an alleged contravention of the protection of your personal information by us. We will address your complaint as far as possible.

The contact details for the Information Regulator is as follows:

How can you get in touch with us? 

For any queries in relation to this letter or our processing of your persona information in general, you can contact our Information Officer and/or Deputy Information Officer at the following details: