Privacy Policy

1. Who is responsible for your information

SolarZA.co.za operates this website, the solar installer directory, and the quote-matching service. For the purposes of the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (POPIA), we are the responsible party for the information described below.

Where we pass your enquiry to a solar installer, that installer becomes a separate responsible party for what it does with your information from that point. It is not our processor and we do not control its systems. This is explained in more detail in section 4.

You can reach us about anything in this policy through our contact page.

2. What we collect

Quote request details

Your name, contact number, email address, the area you are in, your approximate monthly electricity spend, property type, and whatever you tell us about what you want. You give us this deliberately when you submit a quote request or use the matching flow.

Installer account details

For solar businesses that register: business name, registration details, contact person, contact details, service areas, and the record of credit purchases and enquiries unlocked. This includes information you add when you claim a listing.

Directory listing information

Business contact details, service areas, brands, certifications and public review figures, compiled from public business records and companies' own published material. This is business information rather than personal information in most cases, but where a sole trader's listing is also their personal contact detail, we treat it as personal information.

Payment information

Installer credit purchases are processed by PayFast. Card details are entered on PayFast's systems and are never received or stored by us. We keep the transaction reference, amount, and status so we can credit the correct account and resolve disputes.

Usage and device data

Pages visited, referring source, approximate location derived from IP address, browser and device type, and interactions such as which calls to action were clicked. This is collected through Google Analytics and, where you have consented, advertising cookies.

Communications

Support messages, emails and any correspondence you send us, kept so we have a record of what was asked and answered.

3. Why we process it, and on what lawful basis

To provide the service you asked for

Passing your quote request to installers, letting installers receive and respond to enquiries, running accounts and processing credit purchases. The lawful basis is performance of a contract with you, or steps taken at your request before entering one.

With your consent

Non-essential cookies, analytics and personalised advertising, and any marketing email you opted into. You gave this through the cookie banner or a subscription checkbox, and you can withdraw it at any time without affecting anything done before you withdrew it.

For our legitimate interests

Keeping the directory accurate, preventing fraudulent and abusive enquiries, securing the service, and understanding in aggregate which content is useful. We balance these against your rights and use the least intrusive method that works.

To meet legal obligations

Keeping financial and tax records for the periods South African law requires, and responding to lawful requests from authorities.

4. Who we share it with

Solar installers. This is the core of the service: when you submit a quote request, your details are made available to installers so they can quote. Installers pay us to unlock an enquiry. Once an installer has your details, it is independently responsible for how it uses them, including its own POPIA obligations and its own marketing choices. If an installer contacts you in a way you did not agree to, tell them to stop, and tell us so we can act on it.

Service providers acting on our instructions. Hosting and infrastructure, email delivery (Resend), SMS delivery (SMSPortal and Africa's Talking), payment processing (PayFast), and analytics (Google). These process information on our behalf under contract and may not use it for their own purposes, with the exception of the advertising and analytics services described in section 5, which are governed by their own policies.

Legal and protective disclosures. Where we are legally required to disclose information, or where disclosure is necessary to establish, exercise or defend a legal claim, or to protect someone's safety.

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it with anyone other than as described above.

5. Advertising, analytics and cookies

This site is funded partly by advertising served by Google, including Google AdSense. Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve adverts based on your prior visits to this and other websites. Google's use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve adverts to you based on your visits to this site and other sites on the internet.

You can opt out of personalised advertising by visiting Google's Ads Settings at google.com/settings/ads. You can opt out of a third-party vendor's use of cookies for personalised advertising at aboutads.info/choices. Blocking these cookies does not remove advertising; it makes it non-personalised.

We use a consent banner. If you decline non-essential cookies, we signal that choice to Google so that analytics runs without persistent identifiers and adverts are served non-personalised. Declining does not restrict your access to any part of this site.

We use Google Analytics to understand which pages are useful. Where you have not consented, this runs in a cookieless mode that does not identify you. Full detail of every cookie set, its purpose and its lifetime is on our cookie policy page.

Advertising is kept off the pages where it would be inappropriate: the quote request form, the matching flow, and the installer and administrator dashboards carry no adverts.

6. How long we keep it

Quote requests

Kept for as long as needed to run the matching, then retained for up to 24 months so we can resolve disputes about what was sent to whom, and then deleted.

Installer accounts

Kept while the account is open and for a period after closure for dispute resolution, except for transaction records, which are kept for the period required by tax and company law.

Analytics data

Retained on Google's standard retention schedule for the property, in aggregated or pseudonymous form.

Correspondence

Kept while relevant and then deleted on a rolling basis.

7. Your rights under POPIA

You may ask us what personal information we hold about you and request a copy. You may ask us to correct or delete information that is inaccurate, irrelevant, excessive, out of date, incomplete, misleading or obtained unlawfully. You may object to processing we carry out on the basis of legitimate interests. You may withdraw consent at any time, including consent to cookies, and you may unsubscribe from any marketing message using the link in it.

There is a practical limit worth stating plainly: once your enquiry has been passed to an installer, we can delete our copy but we cannot delete theirs. To have an installer's copy removed you have to ask that installer directly. Tell us and we will pass the request on and follow it up.

To exercise any right, contact us through the contact page. We will respond within a reasonable period and will not charge you for a reasonable request. If you are not satisfied with our response, you may complain to the Information Regulator of South Africa. Our POPIA disclaimer page sets out the Regulator's contact details and the grounds of processing in more detail.

8. Security, and where information is held

Traffic to this site is encrypted in transit. Access to account and enquiry data is restricted to those who need it to run the service, and payment card data never reaches our systems. No system is perfectly secure, and we do not claim otherwise; if a breach affects your personal information we will notify you and the Information Regulator as POPIA requires.

Some of our service providers, including our analytics, email and hosting providers, process information outside South Africa. Where information is transferred across borders we rely on the provider being subject to laws or binding agreements that give effect to principles for lawful processing substantially similar to POPIA.

9. Children

This service is intended for adults making decisions about property. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 18. If you believe a child has given us information, tell us and we will delete it.

10. Changes to this policy

We update this policy when the service changes. The date at the top shows the current version. Where a change materially affects how we use information you have already given us, we will say so prominently rather than relying on you noticing a new date.