This Privacy Notice explains how Research ICT Africa obtains, uses and discloses your personal information.

Research ICT Africa  is committed to protecting your privacy and ensuring that your personal information is collected and used properly, lawfully and transparently in compliance with the South African Protection of Personal Information Act (“POPIA”).

Who we are

Research ICT Africa (“RIA”) conducts  multidisciplinary research on digital governance, policy and regulation that facilitates evidence-based and informed policy making for improved access, use and application of digital technologies for social and economic development in Africa.

Our public-interest research on the digital economy and society responds to national, regional and continental needs. It provides relevant stakeholders with the information and analysis required to develop flexible and adaptive policies and regulation to  deal with an increasingly complex and dynamic digital environment. RIA will contribute to the gathering and analysis of data and indicators to establish a repository of knowledge for furthering research and digital governance.

Our physical address is 409, The Studios, Old Castle Brewery, 6 Beach Road, Woodstock, 7925, Cape Town, South Africa.

You can contact us by email at admin [at] researchictafrica [dot] net or communications [at] researchictafrica [dot] net. You can contact us by phone at +27 21 447 6332. Our website address is: https://researchictafrica.net.

Our Executive Director is Dr Alison Gillwald.

The information we collect

RIA’s work requires us to keep our partners, clients, friends, and website visitors informed of our work, as well as to monitor engagement which is needed for reporting to our funders and stakeholders. We collect and process your personal information mainly to contact you  to keep you informed of RIA events, activities and research. This information is collected primarily through the RIA mailing list as well as through the contact form on the website. For the mailing list we will collect contact details including your name, organisation, institutional affiliation and website.

We collect information directly from you where you provide us with your personal details.  Where possible, we will inform you what information you are required to provide to us and what information is optional.

Website usage information may be collected using “cookies” which allows us to collect standard internet visitor usage information.

This website also uses Google Analytics to collect information about users of our website. The information collected by us includes your Internet Protocol (IP) address, your geographic location, the device and browser you use, the language of your browser, your browsing activity (use of and engagement with) the RIA website on the website including time spent on the website the pages visited and links clicked on, we also collect information about the Google searches that you used to end up on the research ICT Africa website.

How we use your information

We will use your personal information only for the purposes for which it was collected and agreed with you. The purposes include your personal information being used for our mailing list and contact database as well as for analytics in order for us to gain insights on the visitors of our website. The information about website usage is used for our own insights, as well as aggregated to report to funders and stakeholders.

Disclosure of information

Your information may be shared with Google (Google Analytics and Google Search Console) which we use for the purpose of gathering visitor information. Google’s privacy policy can be found at https://policies.google.com/.

Your information may also be shared with MailChimp if you sign up to the RIA mailing list. We need your contact information to contact you and send our newsletter to. Your information is only shared with MailChimp if you sign up for our newsletter/mailing list. MailChimp’s privacy policy can found at https://mailchimp.com/legal/privacy/.

Your information may also be accessible and shared with our web host Xneelo. Xneelo’s privacy policy can be found here https://xneelo.co.za/legal/privacy-policy/.

We may disclose your personal information to our service providers who are involved in the delivery of products or services to you. We have agreements in place to ensure that they comply with the privacy requirements as required by the Protection of Personal Information Act.

We may also disclose your information:

Cookies

If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.

If you visit our login page, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.

When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.

If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.

Contact forms

If you submit a response to the contact form in our website, we will capture your name and e-mail addres in order to respond to your enquiry. We do not use the information submitted through the contact from for marketing purposes.

Mailing list

If you subscribe to our mailing list, we will capture your name and e-mail addres in order to respond to your enquiry. We do not use the information submitted through the contact from for marketing purposes. We will share the information with MailChimp, as we need their service to run our mailing list. https://mailchimp.com/legal/privacy/ .

Embedded content from other websites

Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.

These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

Analytics

Your information may be shared with Google (Google Analytics and Google Search Console) which we use for the purpose of gathering visitor information. Google’s privacy policy can be found at https://policies.google.com/. We use Google Analytics to track engagement with our content, as well as to report engagement metrics to our donors. Any engagement metrics shared with third parties (other than Google) are aggregated stripped of personal information before being shared.


Information Security

We are legally obliged to provide adequate protection for the personal information we hold and to stop unauthorized access and use of personal information. We will, on an on-going basis, continue to review our security controls and related processes to ensure that your personal information remains secure.

Our security policies and procedures cover:

When we contract with third parties, we impose appropriate security, privacy and confidentiality obligations on them to ensure that personal information that we remain responsible for, is kept secure.

We will ensure that anyone to whom we pass your personal information agrees to treat your information with the same level of protection as we are obliged to.


Your Rights: Access to information

You have the right to request a copy of the personal information we hold about you. To do this, simply contact us at the numbers/addresses as provided on our website and specify what information you require.  We will need a copy of your ID document to confirm your identity before providing details of your personal information. Please note that any such access request may be subject to a payment of a legally allowable fee.


Correction of your information

You have the right to ask us to update, correct or delete your personal information. We will require a copy of your ID document to confirm your identity before making changes to personal information we may hold about you. We would appreciate it if you would keep your personal information accurate.


Definition of personal information

According to the Act ‘‘personal information’’ means information relating to an identifiable, living, natural person, and where it is applicable, an identifiable, existing juristic person.


Updates or changes to our privacy policy

We will do our best to ensure that you are informed via the mailing list and website of any changes to our privacy policy that may occur.


How to contact us

If you have any queries about this notice; you need further information about our privacy practices; wish to withdraw consent; exercise preferences or access or correct your personal information, please contact us at admin [at] researchictafrica [dot] net or communications [at] researchictafrica [dot] net. You can contact us by phone at +27 21 447 6332 or by fax at +27 21 447 9529. Our website address is: https://researchictafrica.net.