POPIA / Data Protection

1. Purpose of this page

Verify Network SA processes personal and business information to operate a risk-status, reporting, checking, dispute, payment, and admin review platform. This page outlines how the platform intends to handle data protection in a responsible way.

This page should be read together with the Privacy Policy, Terms and Conditions, and Responsible Use page.

2. Responsible handling of information

Verify Network SA should collect and use personal information only for clear platform purposes, including checks, report submissions, account management, payments, dispute handling, admin review, notifications, audit records, and legal or operational compliance.

3. Personal information processed

The platform may process names, business names, email addresses, phone numbers, business details, report details, payment references, dispute details, audit records, admin notes, and website usage information.

Users must avoid submitting excessive, irrelevant, insulting, threatening, or unnecessary personal information. Report descriptions should be factual, relevant, and capable of review.

4. Purpose and minimality

Information should be collected for a specific platform purpose and should be limited to what is reasonably necessary for that purpose. Public pages should avoid displaying unnecessary personal information, and sensitive details should be restricted to admin review where practical.

5. Consent, truth confirmation, and user responsibility

Users submitting forms may be required to accept the Terms and confirm that the information they provide is true to the best of their knowledge. Submitting a report does not automatically prove that the reported person or business has done anything wrong.

False, misleading, malicious, or abusive submissions may be rejected, removed, restricted, or escalated for admin review.

6. Public risk-status information

Verify Network SA should use controlled risk-status wording and avoid unrestricted public allegations. Public results may show a status such as No negative record found, Under review, Moderate risk, High risk, or Verified severe risk, depending on the admin review process and platform rules.

7. Access, correction, and review requests

Affected persons or businesses may request access, correction, update, dispute, review, or removal where appropriate. Verify Network SA may require enough identifying information to confirm the request and may keep audit records where required for operational or legal reasons.

8. Security safeguards

The platform should use reasonable safeguards such as role-based access, secure authentication, CSRF protection, prepared database queries, admin permissions, audit logging, controlled public output, and secure hosting practices.

Admin access should be limited to authorised users. Additional controls such as stronger password rules, email verification, phone verification, and two-factor authentication may be added before or after launch depending on client priorities and provider setup.

9. Operators and service providers

Verify Network SA may use service providers for hosting, email, payment processing, development, support, backups, or other platform operations. These providers should only process information needed for their service and should use appropriate security measures.

10. Retention and restriction

Records may be retained while needed for checks, reports, disputes, payments, audit trails, legal obligations, account management, or operational review. Public visibility may be restricted or updated even where internal audit records are retained.

11. Security incidents

If a personal information security incident is identified, Verify Network SA should investigate the matter, take reasonable containment steps, and follow applicable notification obligations after legal and technical assessment.

12. Information Officer

The final Information Officer or privacy contact details should be confirmed before launch. Until then, privacy and data-protection enquiries can be directed to the business contact details below.