Last updated 8 September 2026
This notice explains what personal information Beplugged Tech collects, why we collect it, who we share it with and what you can ask us to do about it. It is written to meet our obligations under the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (POPIA).
Who we are
Beplugged Tech is a South African company providing web and software development, business systems, photo book printing and technology training. We are the responsible party for the personal information described here.
- Email: info@beplugged.co.za
- Telephone: +27 65 966 9657
- Website: beplugged.co.za
Our Information Officer is the head of the company. Questions about this notice, or any request described below, should be sent to the address above and marked for the Information Officer.
What we collect, and why
When you contact us
Our contact form and WhatsApp enquiry panel collect your name, email address, telephone number and whatever you write in your message. We use this to answer you and, if the enquiry becomes work, to prepare a quotation. We keep enquiries so that we can pick up a conversation you started months earlier.
When you order a photo book
Our Studio collects your name, email address, telephone number, the occasion for the book, the design you build and the photographs you upload. The photographs are print originals and are kept at full resolution because that is what printing requires.
Photographs are personal information, and they are frequently photographs of other people — family, children, wedding guests. By uploading them you confirm that you are entitled to do so. We do not use your photographs for anything other than producing the book you ordered: they are not published, not used as examples, and not used to market anything, unless you separately ask us to.
After a book has been printed you can release the photographs, which deletes them from our storage. If you do not, we keep them so that a reprint is possible without you uploading everything again.
When you are our client
We hold the contact details, correspondence, quotations, agreements, invoices and payment records needed to do the work and to keep the accounting records the law requires of us.
When you attend our training
We record your name, contact details, employer, attendance, assessment results and any certificate issued. Where training is funded through a SETA or counted toward an employer's skills reporting, we may also be required to record identity number, gender, population group, disability and citizenship.
Race and health information — which includes disability — are special personal information under POPIA and are treated differently. We collect them only where a funding body or a statutory report actually requires them, we tell you at the time, and you may decline. Declining does not affect your training. Where they are not required, these fields are left empty.
When you use the site
Our hosting provider records standard request information such as IP address, browser type and the pages requested, which is used to keep the site working and to defend it against abuse. We use Cloudflare Turnstile on our forms to tell people apart from automated submissions; it is a privacy-preserving alternative to a CAPTCHA and does not track you across websites.
Children
We do not knowingly collect personal information directly from children. Photographs of children are frequently part of a photo book order — a baby album, a school event, a graduation — and are processed on the basis that the adult placing the order is the parent, guardian or otherwise entitled to provide them. If you believe we hold a child's information without that authority, contact us and we will remove it.
Who we share it with
We do not sell personal information. We use the following service providers, who process information on our behalf and only on our instructions:
| Provider | What they do | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Cloudflare | Website hosting, database, photograph storage, bot protection | Global network, including outside South Africa |
| Brevo | Sending quotations, invoices, receipts and other transactional email | European Union |
| Google Fonts | Typefaces used by the site | Outside South Africa |
| Print partners | Printing and finishing photo books | South Africa |
We also disclose information where the law requires it, or to our own professional advisors under a duty of confidentiality.
Information leaving South Africa
Some of the providers above operate outside South Africa, which means your information may be processed in another country. POPIA permits this where the receiving party is subject to laws or binding agreements providing an adequate level of protection. We rely on the contractual terms these providers offer for that purpose. If you would rather your information were not processed this way, contact us — but be aware that it may mean we cannot provide the service.
How long we keep it
- Enquiries — while there is any prospect of the conversation continuing, and then archived.
- Photographs — until you release them after printing. Released photographs are deleted.
- Client and financial records — for the period the Companies Act and tax law require, currently five years from the end of the relevant financial year.
- Training records and certificates — for as long as a learner may need proof of what they achieved, and for any period a quality council or funder requires.
Your rights
Under POPIA you may:
- ask what personal information we hold about you, and get a copy;
- ask us to correct anything that is wrong or incomplete;
- ask us to delete information we no longer have a reason to keep;
- object to processing we are carrying out on the basis of our legitimate interests;
- withdraw consent where our processing relies on it, without affecting what was lawful before you withdrew it;
- complain to the Information Regulator.
Send any of these to info@beplugged.co.za. We will respond within a reasonable time and will tell you if we need to verify who you are first.
The Information Regulator
If you are not satisfied with how we have handled your information you may complain to the Information Regulator of South Africa: inforegulator.org.za, or by email to the address published on that site.
Cookies and similar technology
We keep this deliberately small. The site uses:
- Cloudflare Turnstile on our forms, to distinguish people from automated submissions.
- Browser storage in the photo book editor, so that a book you are part-way through building survives closing the tab. This stays in your browser and is never sent to us.
- A service worker, which caches parts of the site so that it loads quickly and works on a poor connection.
We do not use advertising cookies and we do not track you across other websites.
Security
Access to our systems requires a password and is rate limited. Administrative actions are logged. Photographs and documents are stored on infrastructure with access controls, and links we send you that do not require a login — a quotation to accept, or a progress page — use unguessable addresses rather than a password, so treat them as confidential.
No system is perfectly secure. If we become aware of a compromise affecting your personal information we will notify you and the Information Regulator as POPIA requires.
Changes
We will update this notice when what we do changes. The date at the top tells you when it last changed.