Privacy policy

Welcome to www.vitagene.co.za (“the Website”). The Website is owned and operated by VitaGene (Pty) Ltd, registration number 2017/290022/07, a South African company with its registered offices as Unit B1, Tokai Village Centre, Tokai, Cape Town (“VitaGene”, “We, “Us”, “Our”).

THIS PRIVACY POLICY EXPLAINS HOW YOUR INFORMATION WILL BE COLLECTED, STORED, USED AND DISSEMINATED BY VITAGENE (PTY) LTD AND FORMS PART OF OUR TERMS OF SERVICE.

1.         Introduction to the Privacy Policy

1.1.  Refer to our Terms of Service which operate in conjunction with this Privacy Policy.

1.2.  This Privacy Policy applies to persons visiting, browsing, registering on and making purchases on the Website (collectively “Users”). This includes users of VitaGene’s services, patients referred by referring practitioners, and referring practitioners.

1.3.  VitaGene takes your privacy very seriously and considers all your Personal Information strictly confidential, other than as specified in this Privacy Policy.

1.4.  Your Personal Information is used for the purposes of completing your order of products purchased via vitagene.co.za. If you are a patient of a participating practitioner, and this practitioner referred you to VitaGene to purchase our products, then details of your purchases are provided to your referring practitioner on an ongoing basis for monitoring and compliance of your ongoing health management. And/or, your Personal Information is used when you have opted in to send you marketing material, in which case only your name and email address is used.

1.5.  VitaGene takes reasonable measures to protect your Personal Information against unauthorised use, alteration, loss or corruption.

1.6.  You should always exercise caution when providing any of your personal information.

2.         Securing Your Personal Information

2.1.  VitaGene stores your Personal Information on secure cloud-based servers via Shopify and/or Amazon Web Services and is accessible only to you, VitaGene employees, and if applicable, your referring practitioner, and is secured through either password entry or one time pin technology.

2.2.  You may ask us to delete your Personal Information.

2.3.  Your Personal Information may be stored on servers outside of South Africa, where the privacy legislation may not be the same as in South Africa.

3.         Disclosing Your Personal Information

3.1.  VitaGene agrees never to sell your Personal Information or make it available to any third party, except as specified in this Privacy Policy.

3.2.  VitaGene may disclose your Personal Information:

3.2.1.    Only as necessary, to our Third Party suppliers, so that they can fulfil and deliver your ordered products, for example to communicate with you and deliver to your address.

3.2.2.    Only as necessary, to our employees, so that they are able to service you adequately and improve our services. Our employees understand the importance of your right to privacy and sign confidentiality agreements when they are contracted to work for VitaGene.

3.2.3.    Only as necessary, to fraud detection agencies, law enforcement, government officials and other third parties, in order to protect our safety, the safety of any individual or the general public, or our rights or property, to report or support the investigation into suspected illegal activity or violations of these Terms of Service.

3.2.4.    When required by law, for example by Third Party auditors, credit bureaus, governmental audit, subpoena or order of court, a criminal investigation purpose, or any other legal obligation.

3.2.5.    You agree that VitaGene discloses your Personal Information and product purchases to your referring practitioner where applicable. This is disclosed via the secure online practitioner portal.

4.         Utilising Your Personal Information

4.1.  VitaGene may use your personal information:

4.1.1.    To fulfil your order purchased products, for example:

4.1.1.1.       Providing your name, contact number and address for the purposes of courier delivery,

4.1.1.2.       Providing your name, email address and products purchased to you referring practitioner if applicable,

4.1.1.3.       Providing your name, contact number and email address to our employees, for the purposes of communicating with you.

4.1.2.  To respond to your queries,

4.1.3  If you opt in to receive our marketing material, to:

4.1.3.1.    To update you on VitaGene products and services,

4.1.3.2.    To update you on industry issues.

4.1.4.  To improve our website experience, products and services.

4.1.5. To send messages and emails about pertinent administrative and updates to VitaGene services.

4.1.6.  When compiling Aggregated Information, we take reasonable steps to ensure it does not identify you individually. These statistics may be shared with third parties.

5.         Collecting your Personal Information

5.1.  VitaGene may collect information from you using many methods, for example, when you:

5.1.1.    visit the Website

5.1.2.    subscribe to our communications or marketing material

5.1.3.    fill in the Website contact form

5.1.4.    engage with us on our authorised social media accounts

5.1.5.    use any other tool to communicate with VitaGene

5.1.6.    contact us by email

5.1.7.    enter our competitions

5.1.8.    fill in our forms

5.1.9.    purchase our products

5.1.10. engage in any other activities on any other VitaGene platforms

5.1.11. register on the website

5.2.  The Website uses automatic systems of data collection, such as cookies. A cookie is a device transmitted to the hard disk of a User. Cookies do not contain intelligible information but allow linking between you and your personal information, such as your IP address and other information about your experience on the Website and your preferences expressed while choosing services and purchasing products offered on the Website. Cookies are disseminated by our servers, and no one may gain access to the information that they contain. The information and data are gathered directly and automatically by the Website. We process information collected by cookies in a collective and anonymous way in order to optimize our services and the Website for the needs and preferences of the Users. Please access the information on your Internet browser if you wish to delete cookies after using the Website. If you have started the procedure of deleting cookies, we can’t ensure that all of our web pages will be displayed and that all of our services will be available to you.

5.3.  We  may also use Facebook Pixel and Google Analytics which enable us to track conversions. This means that we are able to track when a person visits our Website from an advert we posted on Facebook or a referring practitioner’s website. We are also able to obtain certain information about Users, namely geographical location, how long you were on the Website, what sites you were on that lead you to ours. Users that visit our Website or interact with our Website may receive adverts we run in their Facebook newsfeed.

5.4.  We use a third-party payment provider called PayFast to process your payments.

5.5.  Where applicable, we may ask you to provide your bank account details to make a payment into your account, for example in the case of an EFT refund.

5.6.  If your personal information changes, please inform us of any changes as soon as reasonably possible, so that we can update our records.

5.7.  VitaGene will take reasonable steps to protect your privacy but we cannot guarantee or accept liability whatsoever for any unauthorised or unlawful access to our records of your personal information, unless as a result of our gross negligence.

6.         Your rights in relation to your information

6.1.  Subject to certain limitations on certain rights, you have the following rights in relation to your information:

6.1.1.    Request access to your personal information (commonly known as a “data subject access request”). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal information we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.

6.1.2.    Request correction of the personal information that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate information we hold about you corrected.

6.1.3.    Request erasure of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal information where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal information where you have exercised your right to object to processing (see below).

6.1.4.    Object to processing of your personal information where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal information for direct marketing purposes.

6.1.5.    Request the restriction of processing of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of personal information about you, for example if you want us to establish its accuracy or the reason for processing it.

6.1.6.    Request the transfer of your personal information to another party.

6.1.7.    Withdraw consent to our use of your information at any time where we rely on your consent to use or process that information. Please note that if you withdraw your consent, this will not affect the lawfulness of our use and processing of your information on the basis of your consent before the point in time when you withdraw your consent.

6.2.  We will endeavour to respond to any such requests as soon as is reasonably practicable and in any event within any time limits stipulated by law. In some instances, we may be able to charge a fee for responding to your request and will advise you of this and any applicable amount prior to responding.

6.3.  You should be aware that certain information is exempt from the right of access. This may include information which identifies other individuals, or information which is subject to legal privilege.

6.4.  You should also be aware that in some instances, if you do not provide information or you exercise any rights regarding the deletion or restriction of your information or object to the processing of your information or withdraw consent, we may not be able to process your order for products sold via the Website.

6.5.  Where you request access to your information, we are required by law to use all reasonable measures to verify your identity before doing so. These measures are designed to protect your information and to reduce the risk of identity fraud, identity theft or general unauthorised access to your information.

6.6.  You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator: The Information Regulator (South Africa):

SALU Building,
316 Thabo Sehume Street,
Pretoria
Tel: 012 406 4818
inforeg@justice.gov.za

7.         Changes to this Privacy Policy

7.1.  We reserve the right to modify this privacy policy at any time, so please review it frequently. Changes and clarifications will take effect immediately upon their posting on the website. If we make material changes to this policy, we will notify you here that it has been updated, so that you are aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we use and/or disclose it.

8.         Who to contact regarding this Privacy Policy

8.1.  If you would like to access, correct, amend or delete any personal information we have about you, register a complaint, or simply want more information, contact our Privacy Compliance Officer at support@vitagene.co.za. [Re: Privacy Compliance Officer]