1. Principle

We respect your privacy and take the protection of personal information very seriously. The purpose of this policy is to describe the way we collect, store, use and protect information that can be associated with a specific natural or juristic person and can be used to identify that person (“personal information”).

Personal information:

• Includes

Certain information collected on registration (see below); and

Optional information that you voluntarily provide to us (see below).

• Excludes

Information that has been made anonymous so that it does not identify a specific person; Permanently de-identified information that does not relate or cannot be traced back to you specifically;

Non-personal statistical information collected and compiled by us and information that you have provided voluntarily in an open, public environment or forum including (without limitation) any blog, chat room, community, classifieds or discussion board. Because the information has been disclosed in a public forum, it is no longer confidential and does not constitute personal information subject to protection under this policy.

2. REFERENCE DOCUMENTS

Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) Act 02 of 2000
Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) Act 04 of 2013
QM No. 7.9 Complaints

3. RESPONSIBILITIES

This procedure applies to all personnel of Test It LAB, suppliers, subcontractors, outsourcing laboratories, customers or any persons acting on behalf of Test It LAB.

4. DEFINITIONS AND ABBREVIATIONS

PAIA : Promotion of Access to Information Act
POPIA : Protection of Personal Information Act
Personal information : information relating to an identifiable, living, natural person and where it is an identifiable, applicable, existing juristic person.
Data subject : the person to whom your personal information relates, also referred to as “you” and “your” in the context of this policy.
Consent : any voluntary, specific, and informed expression of will in terms of which permission is given for the processing of personal information.
Competent person : any person who is legally competent to consent to any action or decision being taken in respect of any matters concerning a child.
Child : a person under the age of 18 years who is not legally competent, without the assistance of a competent person, to take any action or decision in respect of any matter relating to himself or herself.
Cookies : small, usually encrypted text files, located in your browser’s directory.
CLI : Calling Line Identification that allows the person receiving the call to see the caller’s number.
Google Analytics : A web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic.
IP : Internet Protocol is a set of requirements for addressing and routing data on the Internet.
ISP : Internet Service Provider is an organization that provides many different services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet.
any operation/set of operations or activity concerning personal information whether by automatic means including: Collection, receipt, recording, organisation, collation, storage, updating or modification, retrieval, alteration, consultation of use, Dissemination by means of transmission, distribution, or making available in any other form or Merging, linking, as well as restriction, degradation, erasure, or destruction of information.
Truecaller : Smartphone application that has features of caller-identification, call- blocking, flash-messaging, call-recording, Chat & Voice by using the internet
Website : www.testitlabs.co.za

5. POLICY

By viewing this document and using our website, you consent to our Privacy Policy and agree to its terms.

As part of our business functions, Test It LAB is responsible to collect, store, use, handle, transfer, process, retain, archive, destroy and manage data subjects’ personal information in a lawful, legitimate, and responsible manner and in accordance with the provision set out in the POPI Act.

Generally, information will be collected directly when using our website or other services including surveys, enquiries, other support systems or in person when you submit sample(s) to us.

If you contact us via our website, we may receive information about you such as your name, email address, phone number, the contents of the message and/or attachments you may send us, and any other information you may choose to provide.

Test It LAB follows a standard procedure of using log files. These files log visitors when they visit websites. All hosting companies do this and a part of hosting services’ analytics. The information collected by log files include internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, Internet Service Provider (ISP), date and time stamp, referring/exit pages, and possibly the number of clicks. These are not linked to any information that is personally identifiable. The purpose of the information is for analyzing trends, administering the site, tracking users’ movement on the website, and gathering demographic information.

Like any other website, Test It LAB uses cookies. These cookies are used to store information including visitors’ preferences, and the pages on the website that the visitor accessed or visited. The information is used to optimize the users’ experience by customizing our web page content based on visitors’ browser type and/or other information.

When contacting us via telephone, we may access your name and phone number using Calling Line Identification (CLI) information or other freely available apps such as Truecaller.

For customers or prospective customers, the personal information that you are asked to provide, and the reasons why you are asked to provide it, is to enable us to

Render services to you, i.e. collect samples, send you progress updates, provide you with results and financial documents such as invoices, remittance advices and statements.
Provide, operate, maintain, improve, personalize and expand our website
Understand and analyze how you use our website

Develop new products, services, features, and functionality
When you submit samples to us for testing, we will ask for your contact information, including items such as name, company name, VAT number, address, email address, and telephone number.

For Test It LAB personnel, we may additionally collect
Biographic information including race, gender, marital status, age, physical address, etc. Information relating to education, medical, financial, criminal, or employment history. Biometric and psychometric information.

Personal opinions, views, or preferences.

Correspondence that is implicitly or explicitly of a private or confidential nature.

For Test It LAB suppliers, subcontractors and outsourcing laboratories we may collect information relating to your business such as

Company profile information including telephone number, physical address, email address, company registration documents etc.
Financial information including tax certificates, B-BBEE certificates, banking details, credit notes, purchase orders, invoices, quotations, etc.

Test It LAB does not knowingly collect any Personal Identifiable Information from children under the age of 18. If you think that your child provided this kind of information, we strongly encourage you to contact us immediately and we will do our best efforts to promptly remove such information from our records.

Any other data received from software services such as Google Analytics and others are not identifiable to a data subject and will not be used for any identification purposes.

Third-party companies can advertise on our website. In doing so, these parties, their agents, or other companies working for them may use technology that automatically collects IP addresses of our website users. They may also use cookies or JavaScript to personalise their advertisements and to measure their performances. Test It LAB does not have control of these technologies or data obtained by third parties. However, any misuse of information will be handled as per our complaint procedure.

Test It LAB will take reasonable steps to ensure that all personal information collected is complete, accurate, and not misleading.

We undertake to preserve the confidentiality of the information and the terms of our relationship.

Test It LAB will not retain records of personal information any longer than the prescribed purpose, unless it is authorised by law or required for lawful purposes, or the record is part of a contract that is still valid, or where the record will be used for historical or statistical purposes where Condition 7 of the POPI Act will be implemented to safeguard the records.

Where no law or code of conduct prescribes the retention period of a personal information record, we will retain the records for a period that will afford the data subject a reasonable opportunity to request access to the record up to 5 years.

Both electronic and physicals records or information will be securely stored and made accessible only to authorised individuals.

Data subjects have right to the following:
Approve consent by using our services.
Withdraw consent at any time by unsubscribing from our website or communicating valid reasons including those where we use or processes information for reasons not communicated with the data subject.

Log a complaint where misuse of information is suspected.
Update their information with us.

Request Test It LAB to delete or destroy their personal information. We will retain the record for a prescribed period depending on the purpose of the record.
Request Test It LAB for verification on whether their personal information is held. We may not decline or charge data subjects for this request.

To be informed or notified by Test It LAB in situations where data subject’s personal information has been accessed or acquired by an unauthorized person.

All Test It LAB documents and records are stored as either hard or soft copies. Some documents or records may be available in both forms.
Documents will be destroyed at the end of their prescribed retention period, which will be assessed through audits or checks on a regular basis.

Both electronic and physicals records or information are securely stored and made accessible only to authorised individuals.

If you wish to report any concerns about our privacy practices, please send an email to admin@testit- labs.co.za with the subject line ‘POPI COMPLAINT’.
All complaints are handled according to our Complaint procedure as per QM No. 7.9.

6. DOCUMENT CONTROL

All records are kept as per QM No. 5/R-06.  Date approved:  01/07/2021.