Privacy Policy

Introduction

Welcome to Alpha South Africa (ASA) privacy notice.

Welcome to our privacy policy. We are Alpha South Africa (ASA), with Company Registration Number: 2000/029765/08, Non-Profit Registration Number NPO: 040-023 and Public Benefit Organisation (PBO) Number 930015602, and offices located at Unit 2A Castle Gate, 83 Castle Street, Cape Town, 8001, South Africa.

We respect your privacy and are committed to protecting your personal information. This privacy policy will inform you how we look after your personal information. It tells you how we collect, use, disclose and store your personal information.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION AND WHO WE ARE
The information we collect about you
How is your personal information collected?
Disclosures Of Your Personal Data
International transfers
Data security
How long will you use my personal information for?
We are committed to empowering you to

1. Important Information And Who We Are

Purpose of this privacy policy

This privacy policy aims to give you information on how we collect and process your personal information, including any information you may provide through this website when you interact with us, register for an event, donate to the charity, apply for a role as a volunteer or staff member or sign up to our newsletter.

This website is not intended for children; however, we do collect children’s personal information if they attend one of our events or take part in our activities.

It is important that you read this privacy policy together with any other privacy policy or fair processing notice we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal information about you so that you are fully aware of how and why we are using your information. This privacy policy supplements the other notices and is not intended to override them.

The responsible party

We are the responsible party, because we decide why and how we process your personal information.

We work in partnership with Alpha International (AI). Alpha International is a charity registered in England and Wales with number 1086179, in Scotland with number SC042906, and a private company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales with number 4157379 (AI).

Alpha South Africa has entered into a formal information sharing agreement with Alpha International. AI also works in partnership with four other independent charities that have a shared heritage and have come out of Holy Trinity Brompton church.

If You Are Located In The European Union

We have appointed Mrs. Nelinha Van Der Walt as our information officer. If you would like to contact us for any information or to lay a complaint about our processing of your personal information, please write to Nelinha at email address popia@alphasa.co.za. You have the right to complain directly to the Information Regulator, but we would appreciate the chance to work with you first to fix any problems or concerns you have.

Changes To The Privacy Notice And Your Duty To Inform Us Of Changes

It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal data changes during your relationship with us.

We will also try to make sure the personal information we hold about you remains accurate and current.

Third-party links

This website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy notice of every website you visit.

2. The information we collect about you

Personal information includes any information about an individual or juristic person which can be used to identify that person or juristic person. It does not include information that is:

anonymous and does not identify a specific person (anonymous information)
permanently de-identified information that does not relate or cannot be traced back to you specifically.
personal statistical information that we collect and compile.

We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal information about you, such as:

Identity information – includes first name, maiden name, surname, username or similar identifier, marital status, title, date of birth, photograph, gender and ID number.
Contact information – includes billing address, delivery address, email address and telephone numbers.
Financial information – includes account numbers, bank account and payment card details.
Transaction information – includes details about payments to and from you and other details of events you have attended, products or services you have purchased from us or gifts you have donated to us.
Technical information – includes internet protocol (IP) address, your login information, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform and other technology on the devices you use to access this website.
Profile information – includes your username and password, purchases or orders made by you, your interests, preferences, feedback and survey responses.
Marketing and Communications information – includes your preferences in receiving marketing from us and our third parties and your communication preferences.
Your personal story of how you came to faith – some of you have volunteered to share your testimonies with Alpha and have given your consent for us to use them in our media and communications.

We also collect, use and share Aggregated Data such as statistical or demographic information for any purpose. For example, we may aggregate your Usage Data to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific website feature. However, if we combine or connect Aggregated Data with your personal information so that it can directly or indirectly identify you, we treat the combined information as personal information which will be used in accordance with this privacy policy.

As a faith-based charity, we collect information about courses, training and events you attend. This information is likely to come within the definition of Special Personal Information. Special Personal Information includes details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health and genetic and biometric information. We will always make it clear to you when we collect this information and why.

If you fail to provide personal information

You acknowledge that where we need to collect your personal information as part of our relationship with you, and you fail to provide that information when requested, we may not be able to carry out an obligation. In this case, we may have to cancel your tickets to an event or service you have with us, but we will notify you if this is the case at the time.

3. How is your personal information collected?

We use different methods to collect information from and about you which include:

Direct interactions

We collect your information through the following direct transactions. This includes personal information you provide when you:

donate online, by text message or completing a giving envelope;
are photographed or filmed during one of our events or courses;
send us an enquiry email;
create an account on our website;
register for an event or course;
subscribe to our service or publications;
request marketing to be sent to you;
enter a competition, promotion or survey; or
give us some feedback.

Automated technologies or interactions

As you interact with our website, we may automatically collect Technical Data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. We collect this personal information by using cookies, server logs and other similar technologies. Please see our cookie policy for further details when we make it available on our website.

You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when websites set or access cookies. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of this website may become inaccessible or not function properly. For more information about the cookies we use, please see our cookies.

When we will use your personal information

We will use your personal information only when it is lawful. Most commonly, we will use your personal information in the following circumstances:

When we need to perform the contract we are about to enter into or have entered into with you.
When it is necessary for our legitimate interests, and your rights do not override those interests. Our legitimate interests include the interest of our charities in conducting and managing our charitable activities to enable us to give you the best church community, events, products and services and the best and most secure experience.

Generally, we do not rely on consent as a condition for processing your personal information other than when we collect Special Personal Information or in relation to sending direct marketing communications to you via email or text message. You have the right to withdraw consent to marketing at any time by clicking on an unsubscribe link in one of our emails to you or by emailing info@alphasa.co.za.

Purposes for which we will use your personal information

We have set out below a description of the ways we plan to use your personal data. We collect and process information so that we can:

manage, administer and promote the charity;
administer financial transactions and donations;
ask for financial support and non-financial support such as volunteering or prayer;
ask for financial support and non-financial support such as volunteering or prayer
manage our fundraising activities and donor communications across HTBG, Alpha South Africa and our partner National Alpha Offices situated across Africa;
administer our courses or events;
connect you with your local National Alpha Office to host you at Leadership Conference;
respond to Alpha enquiries which relate to your region or country;
manage our database of Alpha courses;
manage our websites and social media accounts;
manage our HR function;
prevent and detect crime; and
where we need to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation.

Note that we may process your personal information for more than one lawful ground depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your information. Please email popia@alphasa.co.za if you need details about the specific legal ground we are relying on to process your personal information.

Fundraising

Where we believe we have a legitimate interest to do so, particularly if you have donated to Alpha South Africa, we may conduct profiling to compile information using publicly available information about you or information that you have already provided to us. This information helps us to engage with you in a more personalised way. Where we have identified that you may have the capacity or affinity to support Alpha South Africa at a higher level, we may use the information we hold about you to identify connections between you and our existing circle of key supporters.

Alpha South Africa will not retain publicly available information relating to major donors without informing them and providing them with the opportunity to object to our processing of their personal information, which will be done at the earliest practical opportunity. When we decide not to make contact, we will delete all personal information obtained other than basic contact details to which we will apply a suppression flag to ensure we do not make contact in the future.

Marketing

We strive to provide you with choices regarding certain personal information uses, particularly around marketing and advertising. You will receive marketing communications from us if you have requested information from us and you have not opted out of receiving that marketing.

You can ask us or third parties to stop sending you marketing messages by emailing info@alphasa.co.za at any time.

Change Of Purpose

We will use your personal information only for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If you wish to get an explanation as to how the processing for the new purpose is compatible with the original purpose, please email popia@alphasa.co.za.

If we need to use your personal information for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.

Please note that we may process your personal information without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.

4. Disclosures Of Your Personal Data

We will share some of your personal information with the parties set out below.

Internal third parties.
Fundraising partners.
National Alpha Offices (see definition below).
External third parties (see definition below).
Third parties to whom we may choose to sell, transfer, or merge parts of our activities or our assets. Alternatively, we may seek to acquire other charities or merge with them. If a change happens, your personal information will be used in the same way as set out in this privacy policy.

We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal information and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal information for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal information for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions. Please email popia@alphasa.co.za if you want further information about our sharing of personal information with third parties.

National Alpha Offices (NAO):

The third party National Alpha Office operating in the country or territory where you live, which may be outside of South Africa. You can find your NAO by using this link.

External Third Parties

We share your personal information with our trusted third parties for the following reasons:

For IT and system administration services;
For business growth services to help grow Alpha in new regions;
For event management systems;
For electronic mailing and survey services;
For CRMs (customer relationship management systems);
For professional advisers including lawyers, bankers, auditors, pension advisors and insurers based in South Africa who provide consultancy, banking, legal, insurance and accounting services;
For South African Revenue Services (SARS), regulators and other authorities based in South Africa who require reporting of processing activities in certain circumstances;
To store Alpha’s video assets;
For online video conferencing services that we use for meetings, courses, events and training;
For cloud-based hosting services;
For the information of Alpha International based outside South Africa.

Alpha Online Services Providers:

We use Heroku (owned by Salesforce) and Amazon Web Services to host the platform.
We use Postmark (owned by Wildbit LLC) to send automated emails to guests and administrators when they sign on.
We use Twilio to provide video conferencing (Real Time Communication technology).

5. International transfers

Some of our external third parties, National Alpha Offices and fundraising partners are based outside of South Africa, and their processing of your personal information will involve a transfer of information outside of South Africa.

Whenever we transfer your personal information out of South Africa, we will ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to it.

Please email popia@alphasa.co.za if you want further information on the specific mechanism used by us when transferring your personal information out of South Africa.

6. Data security

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal information from being accidentally lost, used or accessed, altered or disclosed in an unauthorized way. In addition, we limit access to your personal information to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will process your personal information only on our instructions, and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal information breach and will notify you and the Information Regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.

7. How long will you use my personal information for?

We will retain your personal information only for as long as it is needed to fulfil the purposes for which we collected it, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.

To determine the appropriate retention period for storing personal information, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal information, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal information, the purposes for which we process your personal information and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.

To determine the appropriate retention period for storing personal information, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity Details of retention periods for different aspects of your personal information are available in our data retention policy which you can request from us by emailing popia@alphasa.co.za.

No fee usually required

You will not have to pay a fee to get access to your personal information (or to exercise any of your rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.

What we may need from you

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal information (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal information is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request in order to speed up our response.

Time limit to respond

We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it may take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.

8. We are committed to empowering you to:

Request access to your personal information, to receive a copy of your personal information and to check that we are lawfully processing it.

Performance of Contract of the personal information that we hold about you to have any incomplete or inaccurate information corrected, although we may need to verify the accuracy of the new information you provide to us.

Request deletion of your personal information where it is inaccurate, incorrect or out of date. You may also ask us to delete or remove your personal information where you have successfully objected to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to delete your personal information to comply with the law.

Object to processing of your personal information where there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing because you feel it impacts on your rights. You can also object where we are processing your personal information for direct marketing purposes.

Request restriction of processing of your personal information to suspend the processing of your personal information where: (a) you want us to establish the information’s accuracy;
(b) where our use of the information is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it;
(c) where you need us to hold the information; or
(d) you have objected to our use of your information but we need to verify whether we have an overriding legitimate basis to use it.

Request the transfer of your personal information to you or to a third party. In certain circumstances, we may be able to provide you, or a third party you have chosen, with your personal information in a structured format.

Withdraw consent where we are relying on consent for certain processing of your personal information. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.

Disclaimer

The content on this website is provided for your personal and private non-commercial use only. You may not copy, reproduce, distribute, transmit, broadcast, display, sell, license, or otherwise exploit this or any other content for any other purposes without the prior written consent of Alpha South Africa.