RH Lawyers Incorporated and its affiliates (collectively, “RH Lawyers”, “we”, “us”, and “our”) respect your privacy. Please read the following to learn more about our Privacy Policy (“this Policy”). This Policy applies to RH Lawyers websites, products, and services that display or provide links to this Policy.

This Policy describes how RH Lawyers processes your personal data, protect and use your personal information but it may not address all possible data processing scenarios.

By providing us with your personal information you agree to this policy and authorise us to process such information and/or data as set out herein. In addition to this you authorise us, our associates, and our service provides, and other third parties to process your personal information for the purposes stated in this policy.

We will not use your Personal Information for any other purpose than that set out in this Policy and will endeavour to protect your Personal Information that is in our possession from unauthorised alteration, loss, disclosure or access.

Please note that we may review and update this Policy from time to time. The latest version of this Policy is available on request.

This Policy applies to all external parties with whom we interact, including but not limited to individual clients, representatives of client organisations, visitors to our offices, and other users of our legal and related services (“you” or “your”).

HOW WE COLLECT AND USE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION  

Personal information means any data that, either on its own or jointly with other data, can be used to identify a natural person. You directly provide us with such data when you use our websites, products, or services, or interact with us by, for example, contacting us for our services. We may also obtain data by recording how you interact with our websites, products, or services. For example, we may use technologies like cookies or receive use data from software running on your device. As permitted by law, we may also obtain data from public and commercial third-party sources, for example, purchasing statistics from other companies to support our services. The personal information we collect includes name, gender, enterprise name, job position, postal and email addresses, phone number, login information (account and password), photos, and certificate information, etc., depending on how you interact with RH Lawyers, for example, the website you visit or the products and services that you use. We also collect the information you provide to us and the content of messages you send us, such as the query information you provide, or the questions or information you provide for customer service support.

In addition to this, we may collect or obtain personal information about you directly from you; in the course of our relationship with you; in the course of providing legal services to you or your organisation; when you make your Personal Information public; when you visit and/or interact with our Website or our various social media platforms; when you register to use any of our legal and related services including but not limited to newsletters, seminars and legal updates; when you interact with any third party content or advertising on our Website; or when you visit our offices. We may also receive Personal Information about you from third parties (e.g. law enforcement authorities).

Before using our products or services, you may need to provide personal data. In some cases you may be able to opt not to disclose your personal information to us. However, not providing us with certain data may mean that we cannot provide you with certain products or services or respond to an issue that you have raised. 

CATEGORIES OF PERSONAL INFORMATION WE MAY PROCESS

We may collect the following personal information from you:

  • Personal Details: including your name and photograph;
  • Demographic Information: including your gender, marital status, date and place of birth, nationality, title and language preferences, and other preferences and interests;
  • Contact Details: including your address (including proof of address), other contact details (e.g. email and telephone numbers);
  • Identifying Information: including identification numbers issued by government bodies or agencies, such as your identity number, passport number, tax identification number and driving licence number, company registration number, utility provider details, bank statements, tenancy agreements;
  • employment Information: including employer, job title, financial records and employment history, and family details, including their relationship to you;
  • information relevant to the provision of our products and services;
  • data relating to your visits to our Website: your device type; operating system, browser type; browser settings; IP address; language settings; dates and time of connecting to a Website; and other technical communications information;
  • information relevant to the procurement of products and services from suppliers;
  • payment details: including bank account or payment card details, income or other financial information; invoice records; payment records; SWIFT details; IBAN details; payment amount; payment date; and records of cheques;
  • information that you provide to us as part of us providing products and services to you, which depends on the nature of your instructions to any employee or member of RH Lawyers.
  • special or sensitive personal information as defined in applicable data protection legislation, including information about your health, racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs and trade union membership; your genetic and biometric information; information about your sex life;
  • relevant information as required by applicable laws, including anti-money laundering legislation and as part of our client onboarding procedures, including evidence of source of funds;
  • information you provide to us for the purposes of attending meetings and events, including dietary requirements which may reveal information about your health or religious beliefs;
  • identity data, contact data and special personal information from publicly available sources or third parties, service providers and the like who conduct screening for anti-money laundering;
  • purposes, or third parties with whom we host events.

SENSITIVE PERSONAL INFORMATION

Where we need to Process your Sensitive Personal Information, we will do so in the ordinary course of our business, for a legitimate purpose, and in accordance with applicable law.

PURPOSES OF PROCESSING PERSONAL INFORMATION

We may use your personal information for the following purposes: 

  • Fulfilling your transaction or service requests, including fulfilling orders;
  • Delivering, activating, or verifying products or services; participating in virtual activities;
  • Fulfilling your requests for changes or providing you with the requested information (such as marketing materials for products and services);
  • Providing technical support;
  • Contacting you with your consent;
  • Sending you information about products and services that may interest you;
  • inviting you to participate in RH Lawyers activities (including promotional activities), market surveys, or satisfaction surveys;
  • sending you marketing information. If you do not want to receive these types of information, you can opt out at any time;
  • Qualifying and managing suppliers and business partners and communicating or working with suppliers and business partners;
  • Improving our products and services through internal audits, data analysis, and research;
  • Analysing the efficiency of our business operations and evaluating market share;
  • Troubleshooting when you send us error reports;
  • Synchronising, sharing, and storing the data you upload or download, and the data needed for the uploading and downloading;
  • analysis, evaluation, review and collation of information in order to determine legal issues and potential disputes, provide legal advice and prepare or comment on opinions, memoranda, agreements, correspondence, reports, publications, documents relating to legal proceedings and other documents and records (whether in electronic or any other medium whatsoever);
  • compliance with applicable law and fraud prevention;
  • transfer of information to our Service Providers and other third parties;
  • Ensuring the security of our products, services and customers or users, executing and improving our loss prevention and anti-fraud programs;
  • Complying with and enforcing applicable legal requirements, industry standards and our policies.

RH Lawyers may also collect and use non-personally identifiable information (Non-PII). Non-PII is information that cannot be used to identify a particular individual. For example, RH Lawyers will collect statistical data, such as the numbers of visits to its website. We collect this data to understand how users use our websites, products, and services so that we can improve our services and better satisfy your needs. RH Lawyers may collect, use, process, transfer, or disclose non-PII for other purposes at its own discretion. 

We will endeavour to isolate your personal information from non-PII and ensure that the two types of data are used separately. If personal information is combined with non-PII, it will still be treated as personal information during processing. 

RH Lawyers will process your personal information following the requirements of applicable laws on an appropriate legal basis, including:

  • Processing your personal information to fulfil the contract when responding to a transaction or service request;
  • Processing your personal information with your consent;
  • Processing based on the legitimate interests of RH Lawyers or a third party when we use personal information to contact you, conduct marketing or market surveys, improve our products and services, execute and improve our loss prevention and anti-fraud programs, and other purposes. Legitimate interests include enabling us to manage and operate our business and provide our products and services;
  • protecting the security of our businesses, systems, products, services, and customers; internal management;
  • complying with internal policies and processes; and other legitimate interests described in this policy;
  • Processing your personal information as necessary to comply with and fulfil legal obligations. 

HOW WE DISCLOSE PERSONAL DATA

We may disclose your Personal Information to our Associates and Service Providers, for legitimate business purposes, in accordance with applicable law and subject to applicable professional and regulatory requirements regarding confidentiality. In addition, we may disclose your Personal Information: if required by law;  legal and regulatory authorities, upon request, or for the purposes of reporting any actual or suspected breach of applicable law or regulation; third party Operators (including, but not limited to, data processors such as providers of data hosting services and document review technology and services), located anywhere in the world, subject to where it is necessary for the purposes of, or in connection with, actual or threatened legal proceedings or establishment, exercise or defence of legal rights; to any relevant party for the purposes of the prevention, investigation, detection or prosecution of criminal offences or the execution of criminal penalties, including, but not limited to, safeguarding against, and the prevention of threats to, public security; to any relevant third party acquirer(s), in the event that we sell or transfer all or any portion of our business or assets (including, but not limited to, in the event of a reorganization, dissolution or liquidation); and to any relevant third party provider, where our Website uses third party advertising, plugins or content.

If we engage a third party Operator to Process any of your personal information, we recognise that any Operator who is in a foreign country must be subject to a law, binding corporate rules or binding agreements which provide an adequate level of protection similar to POPIA. We will review our relationships with Operators we engage and, to the extent required by any applicable law if force, we will require such Operators to be bound by contractual obligations to only Process such personal information in accordance with our prior written instructions; and use appropriate measures to protect the confidentiality and security of such Personal Information.

DATA SECURITY

The security of your personal information is important to us. We use appropriate physical, management, and technical measures to protect your personal information from unauthorised access, disclosure, use, modification, damage, or loss. For example, we use cryptographic technologies for data confidentiality, protection mechanisms to prevent attacks, and access control mechanisms to permit only authorised access to your personal data. RH Lawyers is committed to protecting your personal data; however, please note that no security measure is perfect.

We will retain your personal information for no longer than is necessary for the purposes stated in this Policy, unless otherwise extending the retention period is required or permitted by law. The data storage period may vary with scenario, product, and service. We only retain and store personal information for the period for which the data is required to serve its primary purpose or a legitimate interest or for the period required to comply with an applicable legal requirement, whichever is longer. The standards RH Lawyers uses to determine the retention period are as follows:

  • The time required to retain personal information to fulfil business purposes, including providing products and services.
  • Maintaining corresponding transaction and business records.
  • Controlling and improving the performance and quality of products and services.
  • Ensuring the security of systems, products, and services.
  • Handling possible user queries or complaints and locating problems.
  • Whether the user agrees to a longer retention period; and whether the laws, contracts, and other equivalencies have special requirements for data retention.

YOUR RIGHTS

You may have rights under the South African and other laws to have access to your Personal Information and to ask us to rectify, erase and restrict use of your Personal Information. You may also have rights to object to your Personal Information being used, to ask for the transfer of Personal Information you have made available to us and to withdraw consent to the use of your Personal Information.

INTERNATIONAL TRANSFERS OF YOUR PERSONAL DATA

Your personal information collected by RH Lawyers may be processed or accessed in the country/region where you use our products and services or in other countries/regions where RH Lawyers or its affiliates, subsidiaries, service providers or business partners have a presence. These jurisdictions may have different data protection laws. In such circumstances, RH Lawyers will take measures to ensure that data is processed as required by this Policy and applicable laws.

UPDATES TO THIS POLICY

RH Lawyers reserves the right to update or change this Policy at any time. We will release the latest Privacy Policy on this page for any changes. It is your responsibility to access this latest version of this policy, when we make it available, from time to time.

DIRECT MARKETING

You have the right to object to receiving direct marketing (opt out) at any time by emailing opt-out@rhlawyers.co.za.

HOW TO CONTACT US

 You may contact us on:

Tel: 087 268 2698
Email: marketing@rhlawyers.co.za

Last Updated: March 2023

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All rights remain reserved in toto.