Privacy Policy

WeCreative Online ("WeCreative", "we", "us" or "our") respects your privacy and is committed to protecting any personal information you share with us. This policy explains what personal information we collect through wecreativeonline.co.za (the "Site"), why we collect it, how we use and protect it, and what rights you have over it.

This policy is written to comply with South Africa's Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 ("POPIA"), which is the data protection law that applies to us as a South African business, and with the general data-protection principles that other jurisdictions (such as the EU's GDPR) also follow, so it should hold up reasonably well for visitors from outside South Africa too.

1. Who is responsible for your information

WeCreative Online, based in Cape Town, South Africa, is the "responsible party" under POPIA for the personal information described in this policy. You can reach us at:

• WhatsApp / phone: +27 68 066 0131
• Via the contact form on this Site

2. What personal information we collect

2.1 Information you give us directly

When you use the contact / Growth Audit form on this Site, you may give us:

• Your name
• Your business name
• Your website address, if you have one
• What you're looking for help with
• Any message or extra details you choose to add

This form sends your details to us as a pre-filled WhatsApp message, which you then choose to send. We do not store this information in a database on our own servers — it is delivered to our WhatsApp number in the same way any WhatsApp message is, and is subject to WhatsApp's own privacy practices for message delivery.

2.2 Information collected automatically

Like most websites, we automatically collect some information about how you use the Site, through:

• Google Analytics (GA4) — collects information such as pages viewed, approximate location (derived from your IP address, not the address itself), device and browser type, how you arrived at the Site (e.g. search, social media, a link), and general on-site behaviour. Google acts as an operator processing this data on our behalf, and this data may be processed on servers outside South Africa — see section 6 below.
• Journey, our own website analytics tool — tracks which pages a visitor views, roughly where they came from (e.g. search, social media, direct), and whether they submitted a contact form (which we treat as a "lead"). Journey is built and operated by us, and does not sell or share this data with any other party.

Neither tool is used to identify you personally by name — they work with anonymised or pseudonymised technical identifiers (such as a cookie, device identifier, or similar technology stored in your browser), not your name or contact details, unless you separately give us those details through the contact form.

3. Cookies and similar technologies

This Site uses cookies and similar technologies (such as locally stored identifiers) to enable Google Analytics and Journey to recognise repeat visits and distinguish one visitor's activity from another's. You can control or delete cookies through your browser settings at any time; doing so may affect how some analytics features work, but will not stop you from using the Site.

4. Why we collect and use your information, and our lawful basis

Purpose	What we use	Lawful basis under POPIA
Responding to your enquiry or Growth Audit request	Contact form details	Necessary to take the steps you requested, and/or your consent in sending the message
Understanding how visitors use the Site, and improving it	Google Analytics, Journey	Our legitimate interest in running and improving our business, balanced against your privacy
Deciding which of our services might suit your business	Contact form details, and (for existing clients) Journey/GA4 data from their own tracked site	Necessary for the contract or proposed contract between us

We do not use your personal information for any purpose beyond what's described in this policy, and we do not sell personal information to third parties.

5. Who we share information with

We do not sell or rent your personal information. We may share limited information with:

• Google (Google Analytics), which processes website analytics data under its own privacy policy and data processing terms
• WhatsApp (Meta), when you choose to send us a message via the contact form or WhatsApp directly
• Service providers who help us run this Site (e.g. hosting), only to the extent needed to provide that service, and under obligations to keep information confidential and secure
• Where required by law, a court order, or to protect our legal rights

6. Cross-border transfer of information

Some of the service providers above (notably Google) may process information on servers located outside South Africa. Where this happens, we rely on those providers' own compliance with recognised data protection standards (such as the EU's GDPR, which Google Analytics is built to support) to ensure your information continues to receive an adequate level of protection, as required by POPIA section 72.

7. How long we keep your information

We keep contact form enquiries for as long as reasonably needed to respond to you and, where you become a client, for the duration of our relationship plus a reasonable period afterwards for legal, accounting and tax record-keeping purposes. Analytics data (Google Analytics and Journey) is retained in aggregate/technical form for as long as needed to produce meaningful before/after comparisons, and is not kept indefinitely beyond that purpose.

8. How we protect your information

We take reasonable technical and organisational steps to protect personal information against loss, unauthorised access, alteration or disclosure, appropriate to the nature of the information we hold. No system is completely secure, but we review our practices periodically to help reduce this risk.

9. Your rights under POPIA

You have the right to:

• Ask us to confirm whether we hold personal information about you, and request a copy of it
• Ask us to correct or update personal information that is inaccurate, out of date, incomplete, or misleading
• Ask us to delete or destroy personal information we no longer have a lawful basis to keep
• Object to our processing of your personal information on reasonable grounds
• Withdraw any consent you've given us, at any time, without this affecting the lawfulness of what we did before you withdrew it
• Lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator of South Africa (contact details in section 11) if you believe we have not handled your information properly

To exercise any of these rights, contact us using the details in section 1. We will respond within a reasonable time, and in any event within the time limits POPIA sets for such requests.

10. Children's information

This Site is intended for business owners and is not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe a child has provided us with personal information, please contact us so we can delete it.

11. The Information Regulator

If you have a concern about how we've handled your personal information that we haven't resolved to your satisfaction, you may contact South Africa's Information Regulator:

• Website: inforegulator.org.za
• Email: complaints.IR@justice.gov.za

12. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time, for example as our services, our tracking tools, or the law change. The "last updated" date at the top of this page will reflect the most recent changes. Where changes are significant, we'll make reasonable efforts to bring them to your attention.

13. Contact us

If you have any questions about this policy or how we handle your personal information, please reach out via WhatsApp at +27 68 066 0131 or through the contact form on this Site.