Privacy Policy

1. Information We Collect

We collect the following categories of personal information:

• Account and identity details — name, surname, known-as name, username, email address, date of birth, gender, and where required for verification, identity document type and number.
• Sign-in identifiers — if you sign in with Google or Apple, the account identifier that provider gives us for you, so we can recognise you next time. With Sign in with Apple you may choose to hide your email, in which case we receive an Apple private relay address that forwards to you instead of your real one.
• Contact details — email, phone number(s), WhatsApp number, social media handles, and an optional physical address (used, among other things, to show you item providers near you).
• SMS communications — if you enable SMS sending, the recipient phone numbers you send to, your message content, your chosen sender ID, and each message's delivery status (sent, delivered, or failed, with the provider's reference and any error). Recipient numbers and message bodies are encrypted at rest. If a recipient replies STOP (or equivalent), that number is added to your account's suppression list and can receive no further SMS from you. See "SMS Portal" under "Who We Share It With" below.
• Saved delivery addresses — optional addresses you save to your profile (label, street address, city, province, postal code, country, and a contact phone number) to reuse at merchandise checkout, to prefill a venue address when creating an event, and to book a provider call-out appointment at your address.
• Partner selling location — if you enable the Partner feature, whether you sell as a mobile seller or from a fixed shop, and if the latter, that shop's physical address (street address, city, province, postal code, country).
• Business details — company name, registration number, VAT registration status, and VAT number for providers and business leads. Your VAT status at the time of a sale is recorded on the resulting order and invoice.
• Financial details — banking details you provide for payouts, your platform account balances, and transaction records. Your bank account number, branch code, and SWIFT code are encrypted at rest and only ever decrypted to process or display your own payout details. If an event you paid for is cancelled and you request a refund, we similarly store the banking details you submit for that refund (account holder name, bank, account number, and branch code — encrypted at rest the same way) — these are shared only with the event's organizer, who pays you directly and uploads proof of payment for you to confirm. See "Refunds on Event Cancellation" in our Terms of Service. Card details are captured and processed by our payment gateway; we never see or store your full card number. If you choose to save your card for future payments at checkout, our payment gateway (PayFast) tokenizes it and we store only that token (encrypted at rest) plus the card's brand and last 4 digits for display — never a full card number, expiry, or CVV. You can view and remove saved cards at any time from Dashboard → Profile → Payment Methods. When you book a long-term contract (an equipment lease, vehicle hire or scheduled delivery route), saving the card is part of the contract: the same token is used to charge your monthly payment on each billing date until the contract ends, and we keep a record of each charge, failed attempt and the contract's site or route addresses for the provider to deliver the service. If you remove that card, monthly charges fail and you pay them yourself from Dashboard → My Contracts. A PDF invoice or receipt is generated for a paid order or booking (your name, contact details, and order/booking details) and emailed to you; you can also download it again later from the order's page on the dashboard.
• Transaction and listing data — events, tickets, bookings, rentals, equipment listings, vendor stall bookings, policies, reviews and ratings, and related communications. For artist bookings this includes booking requests, quotes (fees, deposit terms, and payment deadlines), acceptance or rejection reasons, agreements, and payment and refund records.
• Artist profile content — stage name, bio, artist types, profile and background images, portfolio and media links, awards and achievements you choose to add (title, awarding organization, year, and an optional short description), your booking agreement, any SAMRO, CAPASSO, SAMPRA, or RISA reference/membership numbers you choose to add, and collaboration (split sheet) records including revenue split percentages. When you electronically sign a split sheet, we record your full name and the IP address you signed from, alongside a timestamp — the same way an artist booking contract's signatures are recorded (see E-signatures below). If you and your collaborators confirm the completed split sheet was submitted to SAMRO and/or CAPASSO, we record who confirmed it and when.
• Vendor profile content — your vendor type(s) (Food & Beverage, Merchandise & Crafts, Commercial Exhibitors, or Activity Provider) and, where Food & Beverage applies, your uploaded Certificate of Acceptability document, submitted for our review.
• Merchandise store content — product listings, variants, prices, stock, images, shipping options (including any Courier Guy/Fastway collection address, Delivery by Distance location and price bands, or PAXI settings you configure), orders, and reviews, for artist and vendor stores alike.
• Credit book records — if a vendor sells to you on account (goods now, payment later), that vendor records your name and whatever you share with them: a phone/WhatsApp number, a photo, the items taken, payments made, and the balance owed. These records belong to that vendor's book alone — they are visible only to that vendor and their delegated staff, never to other sellers and never publicly. The vendor is the responsible party for this information under POPIA; we store it on their behalf as the operator, and you may ask the vendor directly what they hold, to correct it, or — once everything is settled — to remove it. Customer photos are optional, used only so the seller can tell customers apart, and are never sent anywhere else. If you reply PAID to a reminder message, we record only that you said so and the time you said it, and show it to the seller for confirmation — replying never clears a balance by itself. Once a credit-book balance is settled and the record has been inactive for the retention period (730 days by default), the personal details on it — phone number, photo and notes — are cleared automatically, leaving only the record of what was bought and paid. If the vendor sends you a payment link to settle your account online, that link opens a page showing only your own name, customer number, what you took and what you owe — never anything about the vendor's other customers. The link is reachable only by its own unguessable address, is never indexed by search engines, and stops working once it is paid, cancelled or expired. Your card details are entered with our payment provider and are never seen or stored by us.
• Requested order details — if a merchandise seller asks you for a specific detail after purchase (for example a name or a reference photo/file), we store the text or file you submit in response. This is shared only with the seller who requested it and is retained per section 6 below.
• Seller News & Updates — if you post a News & Update as an artist or vendor, we store the title, body, and optional image, and display it publicly on your profile or store page while published.
• Page Design — if you customize your public page as an artist or vendor (Dashboard → Page Design), we store your chosen colors and any background/hero images you upload, and display them publicly on your profile or store page.
• Fan Letters — if you write a private letter to an artist (or an artist replies), we store the message content, both participants' identities, timestamps, and its status (Draft, Sent, Opened, or Rejected). A draft is stored as soon as you start saving one, but is never visible to the artist or delivered in any way until you choose to send it. A fan letter is never shown publicly and is never visible to anyone other than the two participants — not even a delegated team member managing the artist's account. If an artist blocks a sender, we record that block to prevent further letters from them.
• Team/staff invitations — if an account holder invites you as staff to help manage their events, venues, equipment, bookings, or fleet, we store the email address (and optional name) they invited, and which permissions were granted, until the invite is accepted, declined, or revoked. Once you accept, you can see and manage the parts of that account you were granted access to, within the scope of those permissions.
• Staff who have no Informativ account — an account holder can add a worker who is not on Informativ at all (a waiter, barman, cleaner, casual, or driver) purely so they can be put on a work schedule. In that case we store what the account holder enters about that person: their name, a phone number and/or email address, an optional job title, optional notes, and the shifts they are scheduled for. No account is created, nothing is sent to that person by us, and they have no login and no access to anything. The account holder is the responsible party for these details — for having that person's permission to record them here, for keeping them accurate, and for removing them when they no longer work for them. These details are visible only to that account holder and the staff they have granted the relevant access to, and to Informativ's Admin/Root staff. If you are such a worker and want your details removed or corrected, ask the business you work for first; you can also contact us and we will pass the request on and, where the law requires it, act on it ourselves. If the account holder chooses Bulk SMS to their team, the number they recorded for you is used to send you that message — those messages go out through the account holder's own SMS wallet, and the usual opt-out applies.
• Verification documents — for example proof of venue ownership, or a fleet vehicle's license disc and proof of ownership.
• Supplier shop connections — if you're a supplier and connect your own online shop, we store its address and regularly read its public catalogue (product names, descriptions, prices, categories and stock) into your Informativ catalogue. If your shop needs an access key to be read (for example a PrestaShop Webservice key), we store it encrypted and use it only for this; it is never shown again and is removed when you disconnect. Before any syncing starts we record your written permission: the name of the person who gave it, the date, and optionally the email or letter itself, kept privately as the record of that permission.
• QR table orders — when you order via a venue's table QR code, no account or login is required. We store the order itself (items, quantities, and price at the time of order), an optional name and order notes if you choose to provide them, and whether you self-certified being of legal drinking age for an alcoholic item. These orders are not paid through the platform — you settle up with the venue directly — so no payment data is collected for them.
• Online food and drink orders — when you order takeaway, collection, or delivery from a restaurant or bar, no account is required. We store your name, phone number, optional email address, the order itself (items, the options you picked such as "no onions", quantities, and price at the time of order), your notes, your chosen collection or delivery day and time, whether you self-certified being of legal drinking age for an alcoholic item, and, for delivery, your delivery address (with its map coordinates if you pick it from the address suggestions, used only to check the venue's delivery area). Payment is processed by our payment provider; we store the payment reference, not your card details. If you give an email address, we use it to email you that order's confirmation once payment goes through, and to tell you if the venue cancels the order and refunds you — nothing else, and no marketing. If you're logged in, the order is also linked to your account.
• Images — profile pictures, background images, event posters, and equipment photos.
• Support tickets and feature requests — what you write when you contact support or suggest a feature (title, the area of the platform it's about, how important it is to you, your description), plus our replies and each request's status. Only you and Informativ's Admin/Root staff can see them, unless staff put a feature request on the community board (see Section 4). We also record which community-board requests you vote for. We use all of this to help you and to decide what to build next.
• Rental delivery/collection evidence — if you rent equipment through the platform, photos and voice-note recordings you or the lessor submit when confirming a delivery/collection or reporting equipment damage, kept against that booking as a record of what was reported.
• Fleet and delivery data — if you run a fleet, your business name, vehicles (type, make, model, plate number, load capacity, license-disc expiry), cancellation policy settings (refundable flag, waiting period hours, cancellation fee percentage, policy text), and submitted verification documents. For each delivery request: pickup and dropoff addresses (plus any extra stops), item description and weight, extra-hands and coming-along flags, timing, fee, verification status, the assigned vehicle and driver, trip mileage and fuel readings, and fuel purchase amounts with receipt photos — kept against that delivery as its record. If you drive for a fleet, your driver license number, license document photo, and license expiry date — kept against your account and used for renewal reminders.
• Points/standing records — for each role you hold, a points balance and a history of the events that changed it (for example a cancellation, a no-show, a late response, equipment damage, or a review outcome), plus whether a role is currently suspended. See "Points & Account Standing" in our Terms of Service.
• Returns, late notices and cancellation reasons — the reason and details you give when you ask to return a merchandise order, and the seller's reply; how late you expect to be and any message when you warn an organizer you're running late; and the reason you give when you cancel a stall booking. These are shared only with the other party to that order or booking.
• Technical data — login records, session cookies, and basic usage information needed to run and secure the platform.
• Push notification token (mobile app, opt-in) — the mobile app only asks your device for notification permission once you turn on "In-App Notifications" in More → Privacy & Permissions (off by default, with an in-app explanation shown before your device asks) — turning it on stores a Firebase Cloud Messaging token for your device so we can send you push notifications (for example ticket, booking, and event updates). On the website, enabling browser notifications does the same thing. The token is removed when you sign out (mobile app) or turn notifications off (browser), and is only ever paired with whichever account is signed in on that device.
• Device and approximate location — each time you sign in, we identify the browser or app used (a "device"). The first time a genuinely new device signs in, we resolve its approximate location from its IP address via a third-party geolocation lookup, and store the device, location, and sign-in time so we can alert you (by notification and email) to a sign-in you don't recognise. We do not re-look-up location on later sign-ins from an already-known device.
• Your phone's make and model in the mobile app — when you sign in to the app, it sends your phone's make and model (for example "Samsung SM-A515F" or "iPhone 15") so each signed-in phone can be listed by name under Profile → Security and signed out on its own. It is not used for anything else, and it is deleted when that phone signs out or goes 90 days without using the app.
• Your location when you look for food near you — on the mobile app's Order Food screen you can tap "Near me" to have restaurants sorted by how close they are, and to see only the ones that deliver to where you are. Your device's approximate location is read once, at that moment, and used for that one search: it is not saved to your account, not stored after the search, not shared with any venue, and never read in the background. An explanation screen is shown before your device asks for the permission, and the screen works without it — you can search by place, suburb or dish instead.
• Voice notes on a food order — at checkout you can record up to a minute of extra instructions for the restaurant or bar. The recording is stored encrypted, only the venue (and its staff working the order board) can play it, and you can replay your own from the order in the app. It is never shared with a delivery fleet or driver, and it is deleted 30 days after the order is completed or cancelled. Recording is optional and needs your permission to use the microphone.
• Ratings you leave on a food order — once a food order has been collected or delivered you can rate it out of five and add a comment. Where a platform delivery fleet brought it, you can separately rate the driver and comment on the delivery. Your rating is stored against that order together with your first name, and counts towards the venue's public rating (a driver rating counts towards the fleet's standing instead — see "Conduct and standing" below). Rating is optional and only the person who placed the order can do it.
• Accounts set up by an Onboarding Agent: if an agent created your account, they entered your name, email, contact details, photos and the features you asked for on your behalf. The agent can see and edit those details, and set up your business profiles, only until you take the account over or end their access. We keep a record of what the agent did and when, so it can be checked later.
• Kitchen screens and orders taken offline: a restaurant or bar can pair a shared tablet as its kitchen or bar order screen. We store the name it is given, which venue and station it belongs to, who paired it and when it was last used. Nobody's account is signed in on it, and the venue can unpair it at any time. When the internet is down, the venue's till keeps the orders it takes (items, token number, total and how they were paid, never customer details) on the phone until they upload, and passes them only to that venue's own screens over the shop's Wi-Fi, using a key that only that venue's devices hold.
• Mobile app version and phone security check: each time the Informativ app opens, it checks on your phone whether the phone is rooted or jailbroken, and which version of the app it is. Only the result (rooted or not) and the version number are sent to us. We store them with that phone's sign-in and show them to you under Profile → Security. Nothing else about your phone is collected for this, and it is never shared with a third party.
• Bot-protection signals — when you log in, register, reset your password, or submit the demo-request or contact form, Google reCAPTCHA analyses your device and interaction behaviour to produce a bot/human risk score. We only receive that score (and whether it passed our threshold), not your browsing history. See "Google reCAPTCHA" under section 3.

2. How We Use It

• To create and manage your account, roles, and profile.
• To operate the marketplace: publishing listings, processing ticket sales, bookings, rentals and deliveries, allocating equipment and vehicles, and managing returns, damage, and late-return charges.
• To process payments, calculate platform commission, manage provider balances, and make and record payouts (including proof of payment).
• To keep a vendor's credit book on their behalf: recording what their on-account customers took, paid, and still owe, so the vendor can collect what they are owed. Reminder messages about amounts due are sent only where the customer shared a phone number, and only against the vendor's own messaging credits.
• To run the artist booking process: delivering booking requests and quotes between organizers and artists, enforcing response and payment deadlines, processing deposit and balance payments, and processing deposit refunds where the quoted refund terms allow.
• To add VAT to your prices at checkout and include your VAT number on invoices where you are VAT registered.
• To verify identity and ownership where the platform requires it (for example venue owners, or a vendor's Certificate of Acceptability).
• To recognise the devices that sign into your account and alert you by notification and email when we see one we don't recognise, so you can catch a sign-in that wasn't you.
• To display provider information to customers — for example your username, company name, ratings, and policies on your listings.
• To show you relevant content, such as item providers near your provided address.
• To send you service communications: booking confirmations, payment results, meeting invitations, and important account or policy updates.
• To deliver SMS you choose to send: your messages are passed to our SMS gateway for delivery, with delivery reports used to show you each message's status and replies monitored for opt-out (STOP) requests, which are honoured automatically.
• To manage business leads you submit to us or that our team captures when you enquire about our services, including sending relevant updates or promotional messages about our services by email or WhatsApp — you may ask us to stop these at any time (see "Your Rights" below). Draft wording for these messages, and suggested replies for our staff, may be generated by an AI model running on our own infrastructure — see "Local AI (Ollama)" under "Who We Share It With" below — but every message is reviewed by a staff member before it is sent; nothing is sent automatically without that review. If our staff upload a photo of a business card, contact form, or event poster to speed up capturing a new lead, that image is processed the same way to read out the contact details on it (including any extra numbers and social handles shown), the event name, date, venue, and ticket/booking details on posters and flyers, and to note any event/service equipment (for example chairs, staging, or lighting) actually shown in the image, so the matching service category can be suggested on the lead — and the image itself is discarded immediately after — it is never stored. The extracted text is kept on the lead to personalise follow-up messages. Businesses that use their own Leads CRM on Informativ (and their sales agents) can use the same drafting, suggested-reply, and photo tools for their own leads, processed the same way. For those leads the business decides what is sent, and nothing is sent or saved until someone at that business reviews it.
• To help you write listing content — venue, event, product, and equipment descriptions, artist and provider profile bios, policy text, help articles, and similar long-form fields across the dashboard, including internal records such as CRM notes about a lead — an "Improve with AI" option can fix grammar or draft a first version from a short brief you type. This is processed the same way as the lead-messaging tool above (see "Local AI (Ollama)" under "Who We Share It With" below); nothing is saved until you review the result and submit the form yourself.
• To help a restaurant or bar owner build their menu faster, an "Import from photo or PDF" option reads a photo or PDF of the menu they upload and suggests the dishes, prices and sizes on it. This is processed the same way as the lead-messaging tool above (see "Local AI (Ollama)" under "Who We Share It With" below). Nothing is added to the menu until the owner reviews it. The uploaded file is kept only so the owner can compare against it while reviewing, and is deleted when they finish or cancel, or after 24 hours at the latest.
• To keep the platform secure, prevent fraud, and comply with legal obligations (including tax and financial record-keeping).
• To maintain each role's points/standing balance, so that unreliable conduct (cancellations, no-shows, late responses, equipment damage/loss, poor reviews) can be tracked and, where a role's points reach zero, that role temporarily suspended.

We process personal information on the lawful bases of performing our contract with you, compliance with legal obligations, our legitimate interests in running a safe marketplace, and your consent where POPIA requires it.

3. Who We Share It With

• Other users, as needed for a transaction — for example a renter sees a lessor's public profile and policies; a lessor sees the renter's name, contact details, and delivery address for a booking; a service provider sees your call-out address when you book an appointment at your own location instead of theirs. For an online food and drink order, the restaurant or bar (and its staff working the order board) sees your name, phone number, order, notes, any voice note you recorded, and delivery address; if the venue uses a platform delivery fleet, that fleet and its driver also see your name, phone number, delivery address, and what's being delivered. For a supplier order, the supplier sees your name, business role, order, and delivery address and phone number; if you choose platform delivery, the delivery fleet and its driver also see that delivery address, phone number, and what's being delivered. In a supplier group order, the other members see your name, whether you collect or have your order delivered, the town of your delivery stop and your order total — never your street address, phone number or items — and the driver sees, for each stop, the name, phone number and items of every order dropped there. When you book a meeting or conference room, the venue (and its staff with booking access) sees your name, phone number, email address, the company or organisation you entered, the number of people, the layout you asked for, any catering you ordered, and any notes. If you then book equipment or a caterer for that meeting, the venue also sees who you booked and the booking's status (not its price). When you book a studio, the studio's venue (and its staff with booking access) sees your name, phone number, email address, the artist, band or project you entered, the services you chose, any notes, and the tech rider you attach. Tech riders are stored privately and only you and the venue can open them.
• RepairersHub (repair shops) — if your provider type is Repairs and you open RepairersHub (repairhub.informativ.co.za, the linked repair-shop app run by the same company), we send it your name, email address, phone number, business name and account identifiers so it can sign you in and set up your account. While you use it, RepairersHub checks with Informativ whether your account is still active and still a Repairs provider; nothing else is shared. The customer, device and repair details you record in RepairersHub are kept there, not on Informativ. When a repair shop sends a payment link or its customer pays online from the repair tracking page, RepairersHub sends us the shop and invoice details, the customer's name, the device and the amount, so the payment page can show them; the card payment is then handled like any other payment on Informativ.
• The venue and fleet you rated — a rating and comment you leave on a food order is shown to that venue's owner (and staff with order access) in their dashboard, alongside your first name and the order reference. A driver rating is shown there too, marked as being about the delivery fleet rather than the venue.
• My QR Code — your name and contact details (email, phone, WhatsApp) are shown to whoever scans your personal QR code (Dashboard/App → My QR Code), used to identify you for a Direct Sale purchase or to receive a transferred event ticket. A service provider you've booked an appointment with can also scan it to confirm you're the person they booked with and start the service — that specific scan only confirms the match and doesn't show them your contact details (they already have those from the booking). The code itself carries no data — scanning it looks your details up fresh each time — so you can invalidate it at any point (a "Regenerate QR Code" button on the same screen) if you've shown it to someone by mistake or a screenshot of it has leaked.
• Local AI (Ollama) — the AI models behind our "Improve with AI" content tool, the lead-communication drafting/suggested-reply tool used by our marketing team and by businesses in their own Leads CRM (including business-card photos uploaded to speed up capturing a new lead), restaurant menu photos and PDFs uploaded through "Import from photo or PDF", WhatsApp message-template drafting, and our accounting team's ledger-discrepancy review currently all run on our own infrastructure (local Ollama model server) and are never sent to any third-party AI service. Each of these connections is individually configurable by a superuser (Dashboard → Settings → API & Service Credentials → OmniRoute); if one is ever repointed at a different, third-party provider instead, this section is updated to name that provider before any live traffic is sent there. Nothing from any of these tools is saved, sent to a lead, or published until a staff member (or, for "Improve with AI", you) reviews it; a business-card photo is discarded immediately after processing and is never stored, and an uploaded menu is deleted when its import is finished or cancelled, or after 24 hours at the latest.
• Staff support chat (Fluxer, self-hosted) — when our support team works tickets in chat, a copy of each support ticket you open (its reference, subject, area and priority, your name, what you write, and our replies) is posted to a private channel on our own self-hosted Fluxer chat server, so the team sees it and can answer you straight away. It runs on our infrastructure and is not shared with Fluxer or any other third party; the channels are visible only to the same Admin/Root staff who can see your tickets on the platform. A ticket's channel, including any notes staff wrote there among themselves, is deleted 30 days after the ticket is resolved or closed; the ticket itself stays in your account as before. You don't need a Fluxer account: you keep using Support in the dashboard or the mobile app.
• E-signatures — artist booking contracts, contract booking agreements and split sheets are signed on our own signing service (built on the open-source Documenso software and run on our own servers, so nothing is sent to Documenso or another third party). For each signer it keeps their name and email address, when they opened, signed or declined the document, the reason for declining if one was given, and the IP address and browser they signed from. These details are printed on the signing certificate at the end of the signed copy, which every signer of that document receives by email and can download. The signed copy is stored encrypted for as long as the booking, contract or split sheet record it belongs to.
• Payment gateways (Yoco, PayFast) — to process card payments and refunds. PayFast is used specifically when you choose to save your card for future payments; it tokenizes your card so we never handle your full card details.
• SMS Portal — when you send SMS through the platform, the recipient's number, your message content, and your sender ID are passed to SMS Portal (our upstream SMS gateway) for delivery, which returns delivery reports per message and forwards replies. A number that replies STOP is suppressed on our side as well as theirs.
• Courier Guy — where a seller offers Courier Guy delivery, your delivery address, contact phone, and order details (weight/dimensions of what you bought) are sent to Courier Guy to get a live delivery quote at checkout, to create the actual shipment once you pay, and to track it thereafter (tracking number, status, and events shown on your order). The seller’s collection address is also shared for the pickup.
• Fastway — where a seller offers Fastway delivery, your delivery address (suburb and postal code), contact phone, and order details (weight/dimensions of what you bought) are sent to Fastway to get a live delivery quote at checkout, to create the shipment once you pay, and to track it thereafter. The seller’s collection address is also shared for the pickup.
• Same-day fleet live location (driver opt-in) — where you choose same-day delivery, and the assigned fleet's driver has turned on "Driver Location Sharing" in the mobile app's More → Privacy & Permissions (off by default, with an in-app explanation shown before their device asks), that driver's live vehicle location (GPS coordinates) is shared with you through your order page while the delivery is active (from Start Trip to Complete Trip), so you can follow the driver on a map. Location stops being shared once the delivery is marked completed, or if the driver turns the setting back off. If the driver hasn't opted in, no live location is shared for the delivery.
• Delivery by Distance — where a seller offers this option, your delivery address is sent to Google's Distance Matrix API to calculate the driving distance from the seller's location, used to work out your live delivery price. The same lookup is also used to price a distance-based equipment rental transport fee, where a lessor has set one up.
• PAXI (Pep stores) — where you choose PAXI delivery, your order weight and, for Store-to-Store collection, your nearest PEP store, receiver name, and contact number are used to arrange your parcel and send a collection PIN.
• Backup storage — a copy of our database and uploaded files is backed up every night to a cloud storage provider. Each backup is encrypted on our server before it is sent, so the provider cannot read it.
• IP geolocation lookup (ipwho.is) — the first time a new device signs into your account, its IP address is sent to this third-party service to resolve an approximate location for the new-device alert described above. No other browsing data is shared with it.
• Google — if you sign in with Google, or where our team schedules meetings with you via Google Calendar/Meet (your email is used to invite you).
• Apple — if you use Sign in with Apple, Apple confirms your identity and shares your name (the first time only), your email or a private relay address, and an account identifier. If you hid your email, the emails we send you go through Apple's relay service. When you close your account we also revoke our access to your Apple sign-in.
• Google reCAPTCHA — our login, registration, forgot-password, demo-request and contact forms are protected by Google reCAPTCHA, which processes device and interaction signals to tell human visitors from bots. This use is subject to Google's own Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.
• WhatsApp (Meta) — where you interact with the platform through WhatsApp, those messages are processed by Meta under their terms.
• Service providers — hosting and infrastructure providers who process data on our behalf under appropriate safeguards.
• Authorities — where the law requires it or to protect rights, safety, or property.

We do not sell your personal information.

4. What Is Public

Your public profile as a provider (username, profile image, company name where applicable, listings, ratings, and published policies) is visible to anyone browsing the platform. If you make your artist profile public, your stage name, bio, artist types, photos, portfolio links, awards and achievements, completed-show count, and upcoming performances at published events are also publicly visible; you can switch the profile back to private at any time. Your legal name, contact details, addresses, identity numbers, VAT number (other than on invoices issued for your sales), SAMRO/ CAPASSO/SAMPRA/RISA reference numbers, and banking details are not shown publicly — your rights organisation reference numbers are only ever shown to your collaborators, on the split sheets you appear on.

Once you have at least one public page, your public profile page (/u/your_username) is visible to anyone. It shows your display name, username, profile image, public artist bio (if your artist profile is public), and links to your pages that are already public (artist profile, events, booking page, store, equipment, bookable venues, delivery service, supplier catalogue). It shows nothing that isn't already public on those pages, and it doesn't exist for an account with no public pages.

If Informativ staff put one of your feature requests on the community board, every signed-in user can see its title, area, status, vote count, and either your description or a summary staff wrote in its place. Your name is never shown, and neither is the team's reply to you. Who voted for what is never shown to other users.

A vendor's merchandise store has no equivalent private/public toggle — once you have published products, your store (name, products, and reviews) is visible to anyone browsing the platform. Your Certificate of Acceptability document, contact details, and banking details are never shown publicly.

When you leave a review after a completed purchase or booking, your display name and any comment you write are shown publicly on that listing or provider's page alongside your star rating — this applies even if your own profile is otherwise private.

Your points/standing balance and history, for every role, are private — visible only to you from Dashboard → Profile → Standing. They are never shown on your public profile or listings.

The Partner role has no public profile or storefront — your selling location, banking details, and sales history are never shown publicly.

A fleet provider's business name, address (if given), and number of verified vehicles are visible to anyone browsing delivery providers. Individual vehicle details (plate numbers, documents), trip readings, and fuel receipts are never shown publicly.

A delivery's tracking page (at /track) can be opened by anyone who has the delivery's booking reference, without logging in — this lets the person receiving a delivery follow it even if they don't hold the account that paid for it. That page shows only the delivery status and its timeline, the pickup/dropoff area (city, not the exact address), the fleet's business name, and — once a driver is on the way — their first name, vehicle make/model, and live location. It never shows the requester's name, exact addresses, payment details, or other account information. Booking references are random codes and are not guessable in practice; treat yours like any other reference number you wouldn't want a stranger to have.

5. Security

We take reasonable, appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect personal information, including encrypted storage of sensitive tokens, hashed passwords, access controls on administrative functions, and encrypted connections (HTTPS). No system is perfectly secure; if a breach affecting your information occurs, we will notify you and the Information Regulator as POPIA requires.

Personal information is encrypted at rest: your name, email address, phone and WhatsApp numbers, ID number, date of birth, addresses, the IP addresses we record for sign-ins and signatures, and the contact details of guests, buyers and bookers. Where we need to look something up (for example, finding your account by email when you sign in), we use a one-way keyed fingerprint of the value rather than the value itself. Private documents you upload — proofs of payment, ownership and verification documents, bank confirmation letters, support attachments, tech riders, incident photos and voice notes, and credit-book photos — are stored encrypted and are only ever sent to the people allowed to see them, never through a public link.

Your messages and notes are encrypted at rest too: WhatsApp and support conversations, the notifications we send you, notes and instructions you add to orders and bookings (such as delivery instructions), allergy details you give for an event, the devices and places you sign in from, and drivers' live location points.

Every sign-in is protected by a second step: the first time you sign in on a device, and again every 30 days, we email you a one-time code that expires after 10 minutes. We keep only a fingerprint of that code, never the code itself.

If you enable optional two-factor authentication, your authenticator secret and one-time recovery codes are stored encrypted and are never shown again after setup (recovery codes are shown once, at the time they're generated). Root, Sire, Manager, and Admin accounts are required to have two-factor authentication enabled to access administrative functions.

6. Retention

We keep personal information for as long as your account is active and thereafter only as long as needed for the purposes above — in particular financial and transaction records, which we retain for the periods required by South African tax and company law. Deleted records are first deactivated (soft-deleted) before being purged in the ordinary course. An account with sales, booking, or business-profile history on it is archived rather than deleted, so it stays referenceable for accounting and legal audits — see Section 7 below.

Encrypted nightly backups are kept for up to about five months (daily copies for 30 days, then fewer weekly and monthly ones) and are then deleted automatically. They are only used to recover from data loss, so information you delete can stay in a backup until that backup expires.

When you change your username, we keep your previous username linked to your account so that links you've already shared keep redirecting to your current page, and so nobody else can take it over and pose as you. Old usernames are only used for those redirects and are never displayed. If your account is deleted they stop redirecting, but stay reserved.

Payment amounts, gateway references, and transaction statuses are additionally kept in an internal, append-only accounting ledger used to verify that every payment, refund, and payout was processed and recorded correctly. Unlike other records, ledger entries are never edited or deleted, even if the underlying order is — this is what makes the ledger useful as an audit trail. It holds no more personal information than the transaction record it mirrors.

Discrepancies in that ledger (for example, a payment that doesn't match what a payment gateway reports) may be reviewed by an automated process, including an AI model, that summarises what it finds for our staff to act on. That process runs on our own infrastructure — your information is never sent to a third-party AI service for this purpose — and it can never itself change an order, an account, or a payment; only a person can act on what it flags.

7. Your Rights

Under POPIA you may:

• ask what personal information we hold about you and request access to it;
• ask us to correct or complete inaccurate information (most details you can edit yourself under Profile → Contacts);
• ask us to delete information we are not required to keep — submit a request from Profile → Danger Zone → "Request Data Deletion" if you're signed in, or from our public Delete My Data page if you can't sign in; either way our team reviews it and confirms once it's done. You can also delete your own account instantly and unreviewed from Profile → Danger Zone, or tell us at the contact details below. Exception: if the account has sales/booking history or has ever had a business profile attached to it (e.g. as an artist, vendor, provider, fleet provider, or venue owner), we archive it rather than delete it, so those records remain available for accounting and legal audits — your login is disabled and your email is freed up either way, so you're welcome to sign up again with the same one;
• object to processing based on our legitimate interests, including opting out of marketing and promotional emails, SMS, WhatsApp messages, or push notifications at any time — self-service, via Profile → Communication Preferences, or by using the "Unsubscribe from marketing emails" link in the footer of any marketing email (no login required). This only stops marketing content; you'll still receive essential account, booking, and event messages. You can also tell us at the contact details below;
• withdraw consent where processing is based on consent;
• complain to the Information Regulator (South Africa) — inforegulator.org.za.

8. Cookies

We use cookies that are necessary for the platform to work — session cookies that keep you signed in, security (CSRF) cookies, a short-lived cookie that protects the Sign in with Apple step, and Google reCAPTCHA cookies that protect our login, registration, password-reset, demo-request and contact forms from automated abuse — and Google Analytics cookies to understand how the platform is used. We do not use third-party advertising or retargeting cookies, and we do not sell data collected through cookies. See our Cookie Policy for details.

9. Children

Informativ is for people aged 18 and older. Everyone confirms they are 18 or older when they sign up (or, for Google and Apple sign-ups and older accounts, the first time they sign in). We keep only that confirmation and when it was given, not your date of birth. We do not knowingly process children's personal information without a competent person's consent; if you believe a child has an account, contact us and we will delete it.

10. Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy from time to time. Material changes will be announced on the platform and the "Last updated" date above will change.