Privacy

This document describes how we handle data & information collected from you whilst visiting our website & making use of our services.

1. Introduction
sparrowhawk.cloud trading as Sparrowhawk IT Services (Pty) is committed to data security & integrity in providing our various services & in our business practices. Therefore sparrowhawk.cloud will take all reasonable measures to ensure that your personal information is processed & protected lawfully, in keeping data confidential & secure.  This privacy policy, and the interpretation and enforcement thereof, will be governed by the laws of the Republic of South Africa.

2. Security of Your Information
When storing personally identifiable information and payment information in our database/s,  we encrypt some sensitive data such as passwords. Our databases & database backups are stored on encrypted servers & encrypted storage mediums when data is transported it is through strictly encrypted protocols. Accessing such information is strictly via secure & encrypted methods of communication. Such data is retained for as long as we are obligated to by law in providing the services requested.

Should any of our databases be compromised resulting in your personal information being unlawfully disclosed, we will advise you via e-mail & advise you on the steps required to protect your personal information.

We will not provide any personally identifiable information about you to any other person other than:

  • when required to do so by law
  • to a person or company who acquires our business
  • third parties who perform services on our behalf that you request (such as payment processing & domain registrars), subject to the third party complying with POPI, GDPR or EU-US Privacy Shield

3. Collected Information via E-mail / Support Tickets:
When you send personally identifying information to us via e-mail or support ticket, this information is used to assist us in gathering the information you may request or require in completing the support request. Information you submit may be viewed by various people within sparrowhawk.cloud to provide you with the service, information or function you have requested. Once received, the information in your email is protected in accordance with law.

4. Clients making of our Services
In registering for & making use of our services you will have to provide us with personally identifiable information to enable us to provide you with our services requested. The information you provide will be entered into our database.

Your Personal Data may Include:

  • name and surname
  • email address
  • telephone number
  • company name, company registration number & VAT number
  • postal or street address
  • username and password

5. Information Collected and Stored Automatically:
When you visit our web site we automatically collect and store the following non-identifying information:

  • Internet protocol (IP) address from which you are accessing our web site.
  • Type of web browser (FireFox, Chrome, Edge) utilised in the site visit & operating system (Windows, Linux, Android, MacOS, iOS) the browser is running on.
  • Date, time & duration of visit/s to our site, for the purpose of traffic and statistical monitoring.
  • Pages visited, this assists us improving our content & the relevance thereof.
This information is used to improve our site & it’s content presented to visitors by learning the number of visitors, the number of pages served. We do not track or record information about identifiable individuals and their visits.

6. Payment Gateways
sparrowhawk.cloud presents the option to clients for payment for services  through  payment gateways namely; PayFast & PayPal. The mentioned payment gateways do not require us to store your payment particulars in our database hence we will not ask you for you banking account details or card information. Payment particulars are entered & controlled by the payment gateway you have chosen to make use of.

7. 3rd Party Links
sparrowhawk.cloud's website contains many links to sites that belong to third parties & are therefore unrelated to us. sparrowhawk.cloud will not accept liability from one disclosing personal information on third party sites. sparrowhawk.cloud is unable to protect any information one may disclose on these sites & therefore we recommend that a review of privacy policy are carried out should the such sites be visited.

8. Cookie Policy
sparrowhawk.cloud uses cookies to maintain session state and store small amounts of data on visitors’ computers or devices.
Cookies are small text files that most websites on the internet store on your device and use to improve your overall experience.

If you do not wish for cookie to be stored, one can reject cookies at browser level. The process is slightly different for each browser. Please do note that cookies may be necessary to provide you with certain features on our website, and thus if you disable the cookies on your web browser you may not be able to use those features, and your access to our website will therefore be limited.

sparrowhawk.cloud uses two types of cookie:

  • Session cookies - These expire when you close your browser. They do not remain on your computer.
  • Persistent cookies - These stay on your computer for a defined period of time.
sparrowhawk.cloud creates the following cookies when you use our website:

Instance: This is the most common cookie that most PHP-based websites will use. This stores the unique session ID for each visitor and enables variables to pass between page loads. The cookie only contains a reference to a session on the web server. The user's browser won't store any personal information. This is a session-only cookie, so it expires as soon as you close the browser.

Affiliate: sparrowhawk.cloud  sets this cookie when an affiliate refers a customer via their affiliate link. It stores the ID of the affiliate that made the referral so that if the customer places an order within the next 90 days following the referral, the affiliate receives credit for it. It is a persistent cookie.

User:  sparrowhawk.cloud uses this cookie for the remember me functionality when logging into our site using your credentials. The system only sets this if a client has chosen to have the system remember their details, ensuring that they don't need to log in multiple times. It is persistent and lasts for 365 days, or until logout.


9. Google reCAPTCHA
sparrowhawk.cloud makes  use of "Google reCAPTCHA" (hereinafter "reCAPTCHA") on our website. This service is provided by Google Inc. ("Google"). reCAPTCHA is used to check whether the data entered on our website (such as on a contact, order, login form) has been entered by a human or by an automated program. To do this, reCAPTCHA analyzes the behavior of the website visitor based on various characteristics. This analysis starts automatically as soon as the website visitor visits a page with a form. For the analysis, reCAPTCHA evaluates various information (e.g. IP address, if any mouse movements have been made by the user). The data collected during the analysis is forwarded to Google. reCAPTCHA analyses take place completely in the background. Website visitors are not advised that such an analysis is taking place. sparrowhawk.cloud has a legitimate interest in protecting its forms from abusive carried out by  automated crawling and spam. For more information about Google reCAPTCHA and Google's privacy policy, please visit the following links: https://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/ and https://www.google.com/recaptcha/about/.

10. Google Web Fonts
For uniform representation of fonts, sparrowhawk.cloud uses web fonts provided by Google. When you open a page, your browser loads the required web fonts into your browser cache to display texts and fonts correctly. For this purpose your browser has to establish a direct connection to Google servers. Google thus becomes aware that our web page was accessed via your IP address. The use of Google Web fonts is done in the interest of a uniform and attractive presentation of our website. This constitutes a justified interest pursuant to in Google Web Fonts implementation. If your browser does not support web fonts, a standard font is used by your computer. Further information about handling user data, can be found at https://developers.google.com/fonts/faq and in Google's privacy policy at https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/.

11. Children's Privacy
Our services are not available to children under the age of 18, and we will therefore not intentionally maintain information about anyone under the age of 18.

12. Limitation
We are not responsible for, give no warranties, nor make any representations in respect of the privacy policies or practices of linked or any third-party websites.

13. Unauthorised Disclosure
We cannot accept any liability whatsoever for unauthorised or unlawful disclosure of your personal data by third parties who are not subject to our control.

14. Amendment of Policy
sparrowhawk.cloud reserves the right to update and / or make changes to this Privacy Policy document. In the event of a substantial change, customers will be informed via email.

15. Questions
Should you have any questions regarding our privacy policy, please  contact us on legal@sparrowhawk.cloud
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