What we do with your details.

Draft policy, published for launch and under review. If anything here worries you, write to hello@neighbournotes.co.za and we will answer plainly.

Last updated: 30 September 2026

Neighbour Notes is the local directory for Hartbeespoort, published at neighbournotes.co.za.

Under the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA), Studio SC (Pty) Ltd (registration number 2023/835374/07), of 20 Kingfisher Drive, Pecanwood Estate, Hartbeespoort, 0216, publishes Neighbour Notes and is the responsible party for the personal information described on this page. The person who handles requests about your information, whom POPIA calls the Information Officer, is Danielle Kolbe, and the quickest way to reach her is hello@neighbournotes.co.za.

We only take in what the site needs to work. Today that is:

• Contact form messages: your name, email address, the topic you choose and what you write. These are emailed to us and also stored on the site, so nothing is lost if an email goes astray.
• Messages to a business: when you use the form on a business’s listing, your name, the contact detail you give and your message go by email to that business, at the address on its listing. We receive a copy so we can follow up if nobody answers, and the message is also stored on the site.
• The Friday Edit: your email address only. You confirm the signup by clicking a link in the first email, and every edition carries an unsubscribe link.
• Listings, claims, updates, specials and events: the business or event details you send for publication, plus the name, email address and phone number you give so we can reply. Where you tell us a contact detail is for our use only and not for the page, we keep it that way.
• Listed businesses: when a business listing is approved, the business email address and the first name of its contact person are added to a separate Mailchimp list that we use to write to listed businesses. If you tick the box on the Submit a Listing form asking for the odd email from us, your address is added to the same list with a note that you asked.
• How the site is used: we count page views, and taps on a business’s phone number, WhatsApp, directions, website and menu links, as daily totals only. No IP address, cookie or device identifier is stored with these counts, so they cannot identify you. The site statistics provided by Jetpack also record which pages are visited, the country a visit comes from and the site that referred it.
• Advertising measurement: the site carries a Meta pixel, which records visits, and records that someone has signed up for The Friday Edit, so that we can measure whether the site’s own Facebook and Instagram advertising works. It is never sent your email address, and it does not read anything you type.

We do not sell personal information, and there are no accounts or logins for visitors.

• Contact form messages and messages to businesses: our copies are kept for twelve months, then deleted.
• The Friday Edit: until you unsubscribe, which you can do from any edition. A record that you unsubscribed is kept so we do not add you again.
• The list of listed businesses: until the business unsubscribes, which it can do from any email we send, or asks us to remove it.
• Listing and event submissions: for as long as the listing or event is live, and for three months after it is removed, in case the removal was a mistake.
• Usage counts and statistics: our daily totals hold nothing that identifies you. Statistics and pixel data are held by Jetpack and Meta under their own retention periods, and we hold no copy of them that identifies you.

Under POPIA you may ask us what we hold about you, ask us to correct it, ask us to delete it, object to how we are using it, and withdraw consent you gave earlier. To do any of these, email hello@neighbournotes.co.za with “Personal information request” in the subject line. We will answer within thirty days, and sooner where we can.

If you ask us to take down a listing that is about you or your business, we will take it down and confirm by email.

If you are not satisfied with our answer, you may complain to the Information Regulator of South Africa. The Regulator takes complaints under POPIA through the eService Portal on its website, inforegulator.org.za, where you register a profile and submit the complaint.

Information Regulator, Woodmead North Office Park, 54 Maxwell Drive, Woodmead, Johannesburg, 2191. Enquiries: enquiries@inforegulator.org.za, 010 023 5200, or 0800 017 160 (toll free).

WordPress may set the cookies it needs to work, which remember nothing about you personally. The Meta pixel sets a cookie that lets Meta recognise a browser it has seen before. Jetpack, which provides the site statistics, may set its own cookies, which Automattic lists at jetpack.com/support/cookies. Our own usage counts use no cookie at all, and no cookie on this site stores anything you type.

You can clear or block cookies in your browser at any time, and the directory works without them.