Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

America Technology Services ("ATS", "we", "us") is the responsible party for the personal information described in this policy. Registered address: Grabouw, Western Cape, South Africa. Information Officer: Elmar Vernon America. [CONFIRM legal name, CIPC number, registered address, Information Officer]

2. What we collect

When you use the contact or enquiry form we collect only what you type into it:

• Your name and email address (required so we can reply).
• An optional phone number and business name.
• The message you write.
• A consent record showing you agreed to be contacted.

We do not use advertising trackers, social pixels, or third-party analytics on this site, and we do not load fonts or scripts from other companies' servers. If you email or WhatsApp us instead, we simply receive the content you send.

3. Why we collect it (purpose)

We process your information only to respond to your enquiry, provide the IT services you ask for, and keep records of our dealings with you. The legal basis is your consent (given via the form checkbox) and, where we have a contract with you, the performance of that contract, as contemplated by POPIA.

4. Operators and third parties

To deliver this site and email we use a web host (Cloudflare Pages for the static site) and a cPanel mail host that runs the form handler. These act as operators processing data on our behalf under our responsibility. We do not sell your information. Where we use any other operator (for example a backup provider in the course of IT services), we have an agreement that holds them to the same protections.

5. Retention

Enquiry messages are kept only as long as needed to respond and to keep a reasonable record of our business dealings, after which they are deleted. Records we must keep for legal, tax or contractual reasons are retained for the periods those laws require.

6. Security

We apply appropriate technical and organisational measures — such as HTTPS, access control and least-privilege administration — to protect your information. No method of transmission or storage is perfectly secure, but we work to protect your data in line with the reasonable precautions expected of a small IT provider.

7. Your rights (data subject)

Under POPIA you may, at any time:

• Access the personal information we hold about you.
• Ask us to correct or delete it.
• Object to certain processing, or withdraw consent.
• Ask that we stop processing, or that we delete records no longer needed.

To exercise a right, contact our Information Officer at hello@atswcape.co.uk. We may need to verify your identity first.

8. Complaints

If you are unhappy with how we handle your information, you may complain to the Information Regulator of South Africa (www.inforegulator.org.za). We would appreciate the chance to help first.

9. A note on POPIA compliance

The IT controls we implement for clients are only one part of POPIA compliance. Nothing in this policy, and no IT service we provide, makes a business "POPIA compliant" on its own — legal advice on POPIA must come from an attorney.