Bennett McNaughton Attorneys (“we/us” hereafter) understand the importance of protecting your personal information and values and respects such information.
This Privacy Statement describes how we collect and use your personal information, with whom we share it and your rights to your personal information.
This Privacy Statement applies to your Personal Information that we collect during your interactions with us whether through this website, in writing, orally, telephonically or personal information that we may collect offline or receive from 3rd parties, regardless of if the information is in digital format or hard copy.
We are subject to the Protection of Personal Information Act, No.4 of 2013 (POPI) and aligns its business processes to be compliant with POPI.
This Privacy Statement includes any subsequent updates or enhancements which we will publish on our website or make available on request.

What Information do we collect?

Personal Information is defined in POPI as information relating to an identifiable, living natural person, and where applicable, an identifiable, existing juristic person. Depending on how you interact with us personal information we collect may include but without limitation:
Address, Banking Details, Date of Birth, Email Address, Employment, Full Name, ID Number, full details of assets and liabilities whether these details appear in a public register or not Telephone Number and contact details of you and any next of kin.
We may also collect other information that does not personally identify you. Such other information includes browser and device information, website usage data, IP addresses, demographic information such geographic location, home language, and information collected through cookies and other technologies or information that has been anonymised or aggregated. If we link this information with your personal information, we will treat such linked information as personal information. You may choose not to provide personal information to us when requested.
We also collect and keep communication records, correspondence, security footage on our premises, and if required by statute, such as National State of Disaster records of visitations, contact tracing detail and the like.

How we collect Personal Information?

We may collect your personal information from you in a variety of ways when you interact with us, including when you interact with us and complete forms, reply by email, phone us (or vice versa), or work with us to fulfill our obligations to you. This also happens when you access or interact with us in a digital format, or interact with us in any other way, or use our solutions, products, and services.
We collect personal information when you allow us to work for you and to serve you with our solutions, products, and services, we process your payment transactions, perform administrative and business functions, and with your consent, market our solutions, products, and services.
When you communicate with us we collect personal information, either to keep our records and compliance up-to-date or to assist you either on your request or if required to do so by a governing body or statute.
We may collect personal information from third parties, business partners, and third parties that provide list enhancement or similar services.
When you use our website, we may automatically collect data, including personal information through the use of cookies and similar technologies. For more information, see the “Cookies” section below.”

Legal basis for processing your personal information

When we process your personal information in connection with the purposes set out in this Privacy Statement, we may rely on one or more of the following legal bases, depending on the purpose for which the processing activity is undertaken and the nature of our relationship with you.
Our legitimate interests (or those of a third party with whom we share your personal information) for the purpose of managing, operating, or promoting our business, and administrative purposes, to full fill a statute or contractual obligation. Where this is necessary to comply with a legal obligation on us to protect the vital interests of any individual. We may also do so where you have consented to the processing of your data.

Use of your personal information.

We may use your personal information for one or more of the following purposes:
• To enable you to effectively interact with us and to make full use of our expertise and to improve our service and or product offering to you;
• To allow us to perform administrative and business functions and internal reporting and to send administrative information and data to you, this may include any party who has an interest in the process flow or in the collaboration of a matter, but with the understanding that information which is supposed to be kept private between you and us will be kept private and that their minimum information will be shared to give effect to our mandate;
• To allow us to report to you and to interact with you and to find out how we can improve in our interaction with you and in what we offer to provide to you;
• To update records and to keep contact information and particulars up-to-date, both from a relationship perspective and to fulfill a legal mandate as an accountable institution in terms of the FIC Act;
• To provide sufficient information to establish patterns, trends and to better serve our business community and you;
• To respond to privacy requests, complaints, and concerns and to improve service delivery.

Sharing your personal information

We share personal information with collaborating parties and business partners, specifically regarding progress in processes, where consent has been provided or legally allowed, with suppliers, registered credit bureaus, law enforcement agencies, credit control purposes without limitation legitimate inquiries for the sharing of information, auditing, data security, due diligence, product or service support and where a contractual agreement exists that data is shared for a legitimate purpose on a nondisclosure basis.
Furthermore, on the basis of a request for data by you, a competent authority, cooperation with an investigation, for litigation, ADR, and judicial purposes and to comply with court and compliance orders and to protect our rights, property or safety and our business partners, and of course, your protection if relevant.
When we share your data with third parties, they are obliged to contractually protect your data and not to use it for any purpose outside of our contractual framework.

Securing your personal information

We have put in place and will continue to develop systems to protect your personal information in terms of this policy and applicable legislation, against loss, alteration, distraction, unauthorized access or disclosure, by using reasonable, appropriate, physical and technical safeguards, by ensuring internal and external role-players are contractually committed to the safety of your data in the proper processing thereof.

Links and Cookies

Our website and digital communication with you may contain links to 3rd party websites or data resources. We are not responsible for the information or the processing of your data on any such websites or web locations. You use such resources at your own risk with the understanding that you will make the necessary inquiries regarding the processing of your data.
Our website uses “cookies”, these are small text files that are individually identifiable, and which will be placed on your device or computer. Similar technologies are used that may remain on your computer or device and which help us to keep track of information, web traffic, to improve your interaction with us in several ways, whether it be to make your experience more individually suited or whether it is to improve the digital experience through analysis or by observing patterns of use. The information that is returned to us includes your unique IP address, how long you were in contact with our digital presence, your page preferences, and interest.

Retaining your information

We will keep your information for as long as it’s legally (by contract or by law) required and practically necessary to do so, as well as to finalize our contractual obligations towards each other. If we are not prohibited by contract, by law, or court order to retain your data, you can request us to destroy it within a shorter retention period.