Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

OPTOG! Media (“we”, “us”, “our”) is a digital media and web development agency based in South Africa. This policy explains how we collect, use, store and protect your personal information when you visit https://www.optogmedia.com, respond to our ads, contact us, or use our services.

We process personal information in line with the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (POPIA). Where it applies, we also follow the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Responsible party: OPTOG! Media
Address: 4 Daventry Street, Lynnwood Manor, Pretoria, 0081
Information Officer: Details available on request at privacy@optogmedia.com
Email: privacy@optogmedia.com
Phone: +27 79 275 0608

2. What information we collect

Information you give us

• Contact details when you fill in a form, request a quote, or email us. This includes your name, email address, phone number, company name and the content of your message.
• Project information you share with us while we work together, such as briefs, content and logins.
• Billing details needed for invoicing, such as company name, VAT number and billing address.

Information collected automatically

• Technical data such as your IP address, browser type, device type and the pages you visit.
• Cookie data (see section 7).

Information from third parties

• When you submit one of our lead forms on Facebook or Instagram, Meta shares the details you submitted with us (see section 3).

We do not knowingly collect information from children under 18.

3. Information collected through our Meta (Facebook & Instagram) lead ads

When you submit one of our lead forms on Facebook or Instagram, Meta shares with us the details you submit. This can include your name, email address, phone number, company name, website, and your answers to the form’s questions. Meta may pre-fill some fields from your Meta profile. You can review and edit them before you submit.

We use this information to:

• contact you about the enquiry you made, for example to book a strategy session or send a quote;
• send you marketing about our services, only if you ticked the consent box on the form;
• measure how well our ads perform.

We store lead information in [CRM / email platform, e.g. Brevo / HubSpot / Google Sheets]. We never sell, rent or share lead information with other advertisers.

Meta processes your information on its own platform under its own privacy policy, available at https://www.facebook.com/privacy/policy. You can unsubscribe from our marketing at any time using the link in our emails, or by emailing privacy@optogmedia.com.

If you do not become a client, we delete your lead information after 12 months.

4. Why we use your information

We use your personal information only for clear, lawful purposes:

• To respond to your enquiries and send quotes.
• To deliver, manage and support the services you’ve hired us for.
• To invoice you and keep accounting records.
• To improve our website and understand how visitors use it.
• To send you marketing about our services. We do this only where you’ve given consent, or where you are an existing client and the messages concern similar services. You can unsubscribe at any time.
• To protect our website from spam, fraud and security threats.
• To meet our legal and regulatory obligations.

5. Who we share your information with

We never sell your personal information. We share it only with trusted service providers who help us run our business. These providers are bound to keep it confidential and secure. They include:

• Website hosting: [Hosting provider]
• Email and productivity: [e.g. Google Workspace / Microsoft 365]
• Lead and contact management: [e.g. Brevo / HubSpot]
• Analytics: [e.g. Google Analytics]
• Advertising: Meta Platforms (Facebook and Instagram), to run our lead ads, receive form submissions and measure ad performance.
• Spam protection: [e.g. Akismet / reCAPTCHA]
• Accounting and invoicing: [e.g. Xero / Sage]

We may also disclose information if the law requires it, or to protect our rights or the safety of others.

6. Cross-border transfers

Some of our service providers, including Meta, store data on servers outside South Africa, for example in the EU or the USA. When this happens, we make sure the recipient is subject to laws, binding agreements or corporate rules that protect your information at a level comparable to POPIA, as section 72 of the Act requires.

7. Cookies

Cookies are small text files stored on your device. We use them for the following purposes:

• Essential cookies: These keep the site working, for example by remembering your login session or cookie preferences.
• Analytics cookies: These help us understand how visitors use the site.
• Marketing cookies: We use the Meta Pixel to measure the performance of our Facebook and Instagram ads and to show relevant ads to people who have visited our site. You can manage this through your cookie settings and your Meta ad preferences.

WordPress cookies

• Comments: If you leave a comment, you can choose to save your name, email address and website in cookies so you don’t have to re-enter them. These cookies last one year.
• Logged-in users: Login cookies last two days, or two weeks if you select “Remember Me”. Screen options cookies last one year. A temporary cookie checks whether your browser accepts cookies and is deleted when you close your browser.

You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings. Note that some parts of the site may not work properly without them.

8. Comments and media

When you leave a comment, we collect the information in the comment form, along with your IP address and browser user agent string, to help detect spam. Comments may be checked by an automated spam detection service.

An anonymised string created from your email address (a hash) may be sent to the Gravatar service to check whether you use it. Gravatar’s privacy policy is available at https://automattic.com/privacy/. Once your comment is approved, your profile picture is visible to the public alongside it.

If you upload images to the site, avoid including embedded location data (EXIF GPS). Other visitors can download images and extract that data.

9. Embedded content

Pages on this site may include embedded content from other websites, such as YouTube videos, Vimeo videos or social media posts. This content behaves exactly as if you had visited the other website directly. Those websites may collect data about you, set cookies and track how you interact with the content, especially if you are logged in to an account with them.

10. How long we keep your information

We keep personal information only as long as we need it for the purpose it was collected:

• Enquiries and leads that don’t lead to work: up to 12 months.
• Client and project records: for the duration of our relationship plus 5 years, in line with tax and company law requirements.
• Marketing contacts: until you unsubscribe or withdraw consent.
• Comments: indefinitely, along with their metadata. This lets us recognise and approve follow-up comments automatically.
• Registered users: for as long as the account exists. You can view, edit or delete your profile information at any time, except your username.

When information is no longer needed, we securely delete or anonymise it.

11. How we protect your information

We use reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect your information against loss, misuse and unauthorised access. These include SSL encryption, access controls, secure hosting and regular software updates. No online system is completely secure, but we take security seriously. If a breach affects your information, we will notify you and the Information Regulator as POPIA requires.

12. Your rights

Under POPIA, you have the right to:

• Ask whether we hold personal information about you, and request a copy of it.
• Ask us to correct or update inaccurate information.
• Ask us to delete your information, unless we are legally required to keep it.
• Object to us processing your information, including for direct marketing.
• Withdraw your consent at any time, where we rely on consent.
• Lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator.

To exercise any of these rights, email privacy@optogmedia.com. We may need to verify your identity before we act on your request, and we will respond within a reasonable time.

13. Complaints

If you’re unhappy with how we’ve handled your information, please contact us first so we can try to resolve it. You can also complain directly to the Information Regulator (South Africa):

• Website: https://inforegulator.org.za
• Complaints email: POPIAComplaints@inforegulator.org.za

14. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. The latest version will always be on this page, with the “Last updated” date at the top.

15. Contact us

For any questions about this policy or your personal information, contact our Information Officer:
Email: privacy@optogmedia.com
Phone: +27 79 275 0608
Address: 4 Daventry Street, Lynnwood Manor, Pretoria, 0081