Privacy policy

1. Who we are

HelpLift Network ("HelpLift", "we") is an online platform at www.helplift.co.za that connects verified South African community organisations with people and businesses who want to help them.

While HelpLift's non-profit trust is being registered, the platform is developed, operated and supported on HelpLift's behalf by DigitalFlyer (Pty) Ltd, which also provides its payment gateway, email delivery and hosting. For the purposes of the Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013 (POPIA), DigitalFlyer (Pty) Ltd is the responsible party for personal information processed on HelpLift until the trust takes over that role. Nothing about how your information is handled changes when it does.

2. What we collect, and from whom

Everyone with an account: your email address and password (stored only in scrambled, one-way form), when you signed up and confirmed, and a record of the steps you took while signing up, so we can see where people get stuck. A security check from Cloudflare runs when you sign up or log in, to stop automated abuse.

Givers (HelpLift calls them Resources): whether you are an individual or a business, an optional name to be credited by, who may see your name, your availability, and the kinds of needs and provinces you want to hear about. Every contribution you commit to, and every confirmation you give, is recorded.

If you ask for a Section 18A tax certificate: your tax reference number, your ID or registration number and your physical address, because SARS requires all three on the certificate.

If you list something on Drop or Collect: what you are offering, photos, a general area (shown publicly), and your contact details and, where something must be collected, your address. Contact details and address are kept separately and shown only to the organisation that claims the item, after it claims it.

Organisation staff: your email address and your role at the organisation. For the organisation itself: its name, registration type and details, location, its registration documents (NPO, PBO and Section 18A letters), whatever it chooses to publish on its directory profile, and its bank details for receiving payments.

People an organisation is helping: these people never have an account. An organisation's staff record them when they ask for help: full name, ID number, a contact number and a general location, together with the need itself. The ID number is turned into a one-way coded value the moment it is entered; the number itself is never stored or written to any log, and nobody, including HelpLift, can read it back. Organisations may only capture a person with that person's permission.

Missionaries: a name, photo, story and general region, listed publicly by an organisation that vouches for them and with their agreement.

Payments: card and EFT payments are handled by Paystack. We never see or store card details. We keep the amount, Paystack's payment reference and how the payment was split.

Help and contact: the words typed into the help search (with nothing that identifies who typed them), whether a help page was useful, and anything you send through the contact form.

3. Why we use it

• To run the platform you signed up for: your account, your contributions, your organisation's needs, and the emails that go with them.
• To verify that every organisation is real before it can ask for help, and to keep fraud and abuse off the platform.
• To record that help actually arrived, which is the point of HelpLift.
• To issue the Section 18A information SARS requires, where you asked for it.
• To spot the same person being helped by two organisations without either knowing. Only the name of the other organisation is ever shown, nothing about the person.
• To improve HelpLift: where people get stuck, and what they search for and cannot find.

We rely on your agreement, on what is needed to provide the service you asked for, on our legitimate interest in keeping the platform safe and honest, and on legal requirements such as tax record keeping. We do not sell personal information, and we do not use it for advertising.

4. Who can see what

• The public sees published needs (never the personal details of the person being helped), the organisation directory as each organisation chose to publish it, missionary listings, Drop or Collect listings with a general area only, a giver's name only if that giver chose to be named, and overall totals on Our impact.
• Needs in sensitive categories such as gender-based violence and protection show the province only and no photo, including when a link is shared on WhatsApp or Facebook.
• An organisation's staff see the people their own organisation is helping, the contributions to their own needs, givers' names as each giver allowed, and a Drop or Collect giver's contact details once they have claimed that item.
• The HelpLift team sees what it needs to verify organisations and support users. Every privileged action is written to an audit log that cannot be switched off.

These limits are enforced by the database itself, not only by what the screens show.

5. Service providers

We use a small number of providers to run HelpLift, each only for its own job and each bound to protect the information it handles:

• Paystack, to process payments.
• Resend, to deliver emails.
• Cloudflare Turnstile, for the security check at sign-up and log-in.
• Our hosting provider in South Africa, where the platform and its database run.

Some of these providers process information outside South Africa, for example to deliver an email. Where they do, they are subject to laws or agreements that protect it to a standard comparable to POPIA.

6. How we protect it

• Everything travels encrypted between your device and HelpLift.
• Access is limited by role and enforced by the database.
• ID numbers are stored only as one-way coded values.
• Organisation documents and proof-of-delivery files are private, and open only through links that expire after a few minutes.
• Changes to important records are logged with who made them and when.

If we ever learn that personal information has been accessed without authority, we will tell the Information Regulator and the people affected, as POPIA requires.

7. How long we keep it

We keep your information while your account is open and for as long as it is needed for the reason it was collected. Records of contributions, payments and tax certificates are kept for at least five years, because South African tax law requires it. When information is no longer needed it is deleted, or kept only in a form that no longer identifies anyone.

8. Your rights

Under POPIA you may:

• ask what personal information we hold about you, and for a copy of it;
• ask us to correct it, or to delete it where we are not required to keep it;
• object to how we use it, or withdraw your agreement where we rely on it;
• ask us to stop sending you any email that is not essential to your account;
• complain to the Information Regulator at inforegulator.org.za.

Ask us first, and we will answer within 30 days. You can change who sees your name, and what you hear about, yourself at any time under Settings. For anything else, including closing your account, write to info@digitalflyer.co.za or use the contact form at the bottom of our home page. How do I delete my account?

A person being helped by an organisation can make the same requests through that organisation, or directly to us.

9. Children

You must be 18 or older to create a HelpLift account. Organisations may record a child as someone they are helping only with the permission of the child's parent or guardian, and the same protections apply.

10. Cookies

HelpLift uses only the cookies it needs to keep you logged in, remember small choices such as a dismissed notice, and run the security check. There are no advertising or tracking cookies.

11. Changes to this policy

If we change what we collect or who can see it, we will update this page and its date, and tell account holders by email when the change matters to them.

12. Contact

Questions, requests and complaints about personal information go to our Information Officer at info@digitalflyer.co.za, or through the contact form at the bottom of our home page.

Related: the Terms of service, and how the 7.5% platform fee works in How much does HelpLift keep from what I give?