When collaborating with the ZA Trade Network (“ZA Trade”), an initiative based in South Africa, your personal data is processed to carry out our daily operations and requirements as an online network-providing company. In the framework of these processing operations, we ensure that your data is protected according to the highest standards. We also act by respective laws and the provision of EU Regulation 2016/679, known as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This Privacy Notice describes how ZA Trade processes, protects, and ensures your rights as a data subject.
1. Purposes of processing personal data ZA Trade receives your data when you use our Online Registration form and/or when you share your data by email. We store and use this data for the following purposes:
- 1.1 match your abilities and skills with the network services requested by our clients;
- 1.2 check your availability to respond to a network request;
- 1.3 contact you concerning the services provided as a vendor of ZA Trade;
- 1.4 transmit requests from clients and related materials;
- 1.5 evaluate your performance for future management and collaboration; and
- 1.6 process payments for services provided.
- 2.1 to fulfill an agreement between you, as an independent vendor, and ZA Trade;
- 2.2 to comply with an obligation under applicable laws;
- 2.3 when you have consented to our use of it for a specific purpose;
- 2.4 to pursue our legitimate interest, which we consider to be the creation and maintenance of a database of vendors; to generate statistics about vendors and clients; and to continuously improve our services: we will therefore use your data only for the above purposes as long as your interests and fundamental rights do not supersede such usage and
- 2.5 to protect your vital interests or those of another individual.
After establishing the purposes and the relevant legal basis for personal data processing operations, we determine what categories of personal data we use. In this regard, we process the personal data categories listed below. This list is not exhaustive, however: it gives the vendor’s main personal data categories processed by us in our day-to-day operations.
General information Extracted from your online registration form, and various professional public profiles: name, surname, date of birth, education, email address, phone number, address, professional experience, references, and price rates.
Financial information Bank, PayPal accounts, and or any account provided by you for making and receiving payments.
Performance Ratings that are based on feedback from customers, and/or clients.
4. Storage, retention, and erasure of personal data The personal data used by ZA Trade is stored in our Network Management System. In general, storage periods at ZA Trade are based on criteria that include legally mandated retention periods, pending or potential litigation, our intellectual property or ownership rights, contract requirements, and any operational directives or needs.
However, to limit the storage to a reasonable period, the Network agrees to provide only the platform that vendors use to act in an independent and responsible capacity. The vendor’s data will be stored as long as an active relation exists between the Vendor and ZA Trade, meaning that the Vendor has an account and is registered at the network.
Account erasure requests can be done online or if not possible due to outstanding transaction processes, an email can be sent to our email account@zatrade.co.za.
5. Transfers of personal data Transfers to third parties
ZA Trade may transfer personal data to third parties in certain circumstances. In general, these transfers are related to two main circumstances:
- 5.1 transfer to clients, with the vendor’s explicit consent or when fulfilling contractual or legal obligations (e.g. for the execution of a contract), and
- 5.2 transfers to public authorities or law enforcement agencies, upon request, or for the fulfillment of legal requirements.
International online operations Due to the international nature of ZA Trade’s online platform with our offices in South Africa, most vendors are outside the European Economic Area (EU member states plus Iceland, Norway, and Liechtenstein). Therefore, your data is kept outside the EEA to countries without an adequacy decision from the European Commission. However, we ensure EU-level data protection through standard contractual clauses to guarantee the security of your data.
6. Personal Data protection rights Right to access your data At any time, you may submit a request to obtain information concerning the details of how and why we process your data. In addition, you are entitled to know how long we store your data and who receives it. This right to access may however be restricted to protect the private life of another individual, because of business considerations (e.g. to protect our expertise, business secrets, etc.) or by legislation.
Right to rectification and erasure of personal data In the event of your data being incorrect, incomplete, or inaccurate, you may request that we correct it. If the personal data we process about you is irrelevant, you may request that ZA Trade delete it. This right is applied by existing legislation and the GDPR.
Right to restrict the use of your personal data during operational processes You are entitled to demand from us that we restrict the use of your data in the event of your claiming that the personal data we possess about you is incorrect or incomplete or in the event of your objecting to us processing it. The restriction will limit the use of your data solely to storage and will apply until the correctness of the data is established or it is determined that your interest outweighs our legitimate interest. If you are entitled to have the data we have about you erased, you may instead request us to restrict the use of the data to storage only.
Right to object and automated decision-making When invoking our legitimate interest, carrying out a task in the public interest, you may object to ZA Trade processing your personal data. The processing operations will be restricted to storage, as described in the preceding paragraph. This right also extends to decisions based solely on automated processing, inclusive of profiling. For such cases, we reserve the right of human intervention to review these cases.
Right to data portability In situations where we process your personal data automatically as a result of consent or agreement, you are entitled to receive a copy of the data you have provided in an electronic, machine-readable format.
Withdrawal of consent In cases when we use your consent as the legal basis to process your data, you have the right to withdraw your consent at any point during such processing. However, ZA Trade can continue to process your personal data lawfully if fulfilling a contractual or legal obligation.
7. Accuracy and updating your personal data For as long as your data is stored in our internal systems, we will ensure that this data is permanently updated to ensure its accuracy. This practice is implemented to respond to the GDPR requirement but also to enable the necessary matching of your professional profile to inform your customers, clients, and related entities. Therefore, you will be able to update the information on your profile directly on the Network Management System or by informing our responsible person at info@zatrade.co.za
8. Updates to this privacy notice This Privacy Notice may be routinely revised to respond to potential developments in our processing operations or external regulatory changes. In this event, an updated version will be posted on our website. In the event of any significant changes that may substantially reduce your rights or increase your obligations, we will inform you by email or through our Network Management System. We recommend you review this page periodically for current information regarding our privacy practices.
9. Contact details and complaint submission If you have any queries regarding your privacy rights or how we process your personal data, you are welcome to contact ZA Trade at our offices by appointment located at 50 Longstreet, Cape Town CBD, WC, 8000, South Africa, or call us at +27 (0) 21 013 3006 or contact us via email at info@zatrade.co.za.
If you are not satisfied with how ZA Trade processes your personal data or are not satisfied with your interaction with our responsible person, you may make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the RSA Data Protection Authority.
ICO Contact Details: Address: 27 Stiemens St, Braamfontein, Pretoria, 0001. Phone: 010 023 5200 Email: helpdesk@inforegulator.org.za