Privacy Policy

This privacy policy describes how AVK Valves Southern Africa (Pty) Ltd, [10 Chris Street, Cnr. Chris and Garlfield, Alrode, Alberton South Africa], (hereinafter “we”, “our” or “us”) process personal data about visitors of our website, newsletter recipients, on-site visitors, contact persons from customers, other business partners, and persons we interact with (“you”).

We respect your privacy and are committed to following the data privacy obligations as set out in applicable South African regulations, including the Protection of Personal Information Act, 4 of 2013 (POPIA), as well as international best practices where applicable. We want to make sure you are comfortable with our privacy policy and the security measures and procedures we take to protect your personal information.

We have implemented a high standard of data protection. If you provide us with personal information or if we collect personal information about you from other sources, we will act as the responsible party (data controller) for the processing of such information, and we will at all times handle your data in accordance with this policy and POPIA. We encourage you to read this privacy policy in full and to review it on a regular basis in case of changes.

Please see below for an overview of the processing activities we perform, including the legal basis and purpose of such activities. If you have any questions regarding this policy, or if you wish to exercise any of your data subject rights, please contact our Information Officer.

Categories of Personal Information, Purposes, and Legal Basis

 

We will collect and process your personal information in different ways when you engage with us.

Some personal information is necessary for us to process in order to provide you with the services or products you have requested, while other information can be provided voluntarily. We will not process any special personal information (such as religious beliefs, race, trade union membership, political persuasion, health, or biometric data) unless it is specifically necessary and you have provided your explicit consent, or we are required to do so by South African law. We ask that you never provide us with unnecessary special personal information through our forms or correspondence.

Visitors of our Website

• What we process: Cookies, browser type and version, IP address, visitor history and behaviour (e.g., length of visit, pages clicked), queries sent via the website, and information submitted via forms (name, email address, province/country of residence, area of interest, company or organisation).
• Purpose: To improve your user experience, provide website functionalities, remember your preferences (such as language or region), generate statistics and user analysis, and support marketing.
• Legal Basis: Our legitimate interest in providing an optimal website experience, alongside your consent for non-essential cookies.

Newsletter Recipients

• What we process: Your email address submitted via our newsletter sign-up form.
• Purpose: To improve your customer experience, provide customer service, and deliver marketing material and company news.
• Legal Basis: Your explicit consent. You can unsubscribe at any time using the link provided in every newsletter.

Contact Persons from Customers and Business Partners

• What we process: Name, job title, email address, telephone number, area of interest, company name, IP address, trade fair/event participation, visitor history, and correspondence records.
• Purpose: To fulfil contractual obligations, maintain and administer business relationships, offer product advice, handle invoicing, and maintain business documentation.
• Legal Basis: Legitimate interests in managing partner relationships and contractual necessity. Certain records are also retained to comply with South African financial and tax legislation (such as the Companies Act and the Tax Administration Act).

As a rule, we will not process any special categories of personal data (special personal data) about you, unless you have provided your explicit consent thereto, or, unless, we are required to do so in order to comply with current legislation.
 

Purposes of processing and legal basis

We only process your personal data in order to pursue a legitimate purpose and generally we will only process your personal data if one or more of the following criteria apply:

• The processing is necessary for the performance of a contract.
• The processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation that we are subject to.
• The processing is necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by us or by a third party and such processing is not considered harmful.
• You have provided your consent to such processing.
        

As a general rule, our legal basis for processing personal data relating to contact persons with our customer/supplier base, is the balancing of the legitimate interests pursued by us in our business-to-business relationships with you against your right of protection of your personal data. We believe, is not considered harmless to you as the registered party as we have only registered basic contact details about you in relation to the organisation in which you are employed, and because we are processing this data to be able to provide a service towards you and your employer.

We process your personal data for the following purposes:

• To provide you with products, services and information that you request from us.
• To send you newsletters or other marketing material, including surveys.
• To administer our business relations and negotiate and execute agreements.
• To provide general customer service and support.
• To gain customer insights and knowledge of how our various services, including websites, applications and products are used as well as for evaluation and improvement  of these.
• To communicate with you regarding various matters.
• To comply with any current legislation.

 
Cookies

We may use cookies on our websites or our applications. Please read more about the use of cookies in our cookie policy.

The purposes of processing of data collected by the use of cookies, are the following:

• To operate, improve and optimise the performance and user experience of the website and its services.
• To perform customer and user analysis and segmentation in order to improve our understanding of our users, and provide better and tailored services to users, including you.
• Statistical purposes.

 
Automatic individual decisions

Your data is not being used for automated individualised decision-making.
 

Sources

Personal data is collected directly from you, which includes any queries made by you or the company you are representing by telephone, e-mail, at trade fairs, through submitted orders etc. Data is also received via our website, e.g. via cookies and forms.
 

Withdrawal of consent

If the processing is based on consent, you have the right to withdraw your consent, but this will not affect the processing or handover of data done prior to the withdrawal of the consent.
 

Disclosure and transfer of personal data

Our disclosure and transfer of your personal data to recipients (natural or legal persons, public authorities, agencies or others, to which the personal data is disclosed) is kept to a minimum and is subject to an adequate level of data protection.

We may disclose or make personal data available to recipients under the following circumstances:

• Recipients who carry out services on our behalf, such as e.g. Hosting, Cloud computing, IT-support, marketing services, administrative services, training services or other data processing. Such recipients are only allowed to process the personal data according to our instructions and the relationship will be governed by a written data processor agreement.
• In order to fulfil our obligation to supply goods to you as a customer, including providing relevant information to our sub-suppliers, including intra-group companies.
• To establish, exercise or defend our legal rights.
• If you have provided your prior consent to the disclosure of personal data to a recipient.
• In the event of any merger, sale, joint venture, assignment, transfer or other disposition of all or any portion of our assets or stock.
• As set out in our cookie-policy, cf. above.
        

If the recipient of the personal data is located in a country outside the EU/EEA which does not ensure an adequate level of data protection, we will only transfer your personal data to such recipient, following the execution of a written transfer agreement based on the EU Commissions Standard Contractual Clauses or similar approved protection regime.
 

Storage period

We do not store the personal data for longer than is legally permitted and necessary for the related processing purposes. The storage period depends on the type of personal data, the purposes, and the relevant law and therefore varies.

We erase personal data after the above storage period or when you request us to erase the personal data, unless there are legal or regulatory requirements which may require us to retain your personal information.
 

Data Security

In order to safeguard your personal data, we have implemented appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure a level of security which matches the risks represented by the processing and the nature of the personal data to be protected, taking into consideration the state of art and the costs of implementing such measures.

Following the evaluation of the risk, we have taken measures to protect personal data against accidental or unlawful destruction or accidental loss, adjustment, unauthorised disclosure or access, in particular where the processing involves the transmission of personal data over a network, and against all other unlawful forms of processing.
 

Your rights

You have the right to access to the data processed about you, subject to certain statutory exceptions. Furthermore, you can object to the collection and further processing of your personal data. In addition, you have the right to correct your personal data, if necessary. You may also choose to request us to restrict the processing.

We will delete or correct any information, which is inaccurate or out of date.

If you provide us with a written request, we will also delete your personal data without undue delay, unless we have a legal basis for continue the processing, e.g. if the processing is necessary to establish, exercise or oppose a legal claim or necessary to the performance of a contract with you or the company or organisation in which you are employed or in any other way represent.

In order to invoke any of the rights mentioned above, please contact us via the contact information provided below.
Kindly provide us with relevant information to take care of your request, including your full name and email address so that we can identify you. We will respond to your request as soon as possible and within one month.
If you disagree with our processing of your personal data, please be informed that you can lodge a complaint with your local data protection agency.
 

Links to other websites and similar

Our websites may contain links to other websites or to integrated sites. We are not responsible for the contents of the websites of other companies (third-party websites) or for the practices of such companies regarding the collection of personal data. When you visit third-party websites, you should read the owners' policies on the protection of personal data and other relevant policies.
 

Changes

We may change our Privacy and Cookies Policy from time to time. The updated Privacy and Cookies Policy applies to your continued use of the website and our use of personal data. We kindly ask you to review our Privacy and Cookies Policy on a regular basis.
 

Contact

If you have any questions about the processing of your personal data or if you wish to exercise any of your rights, please contact us, at webmaster@avkvalves.com.