Introduction
Top Transcriptions complies with The Protection of Personal Information Act 2013, (POPIA) which requires that personal information belonging to any individual, be processed lawfully and in a manner that does not violate an individual’s right to privacy. In order to provide you, the Service User, with the Services, we need to process your personal information. By accepting our Terms of Service, you are confirming that you have read and understand this policy including how and why we use your information.
Data Collection
In order to provide you with our Services, we require a certain amount of information from you. This information may come from a variety of sources and may include:
Information Provided by You
In order to create an account, we require your full name and email address. Further to this, a billing address is required for accounting purposes. You may also provide us with a telephone number. If you upload any media for processing that contains personal data, that data will also be processed and stored by us as necessary for providing you with the Service. Credit card information is passed on to a third-party payments provider (either PayPal or PayFast) for processing and is never directly processed by us nor stored in any way.
Information Provided About Third Parties
The personal data of third parties may be provided to us by a Service User in the course of utilising our Services, such as when uploading audio or video to us for processing. Any information obtained in this way is restricted to being stored within a transcript and is not retained in any indexable form nor further processed in any way. Policy surrounding retention and security extends to this information as well. If you, as a Service User, are providing us with media for transcription that contains the personal data of a third party, the onus is on you to obtain processing consent from that party.
Use of Cookies
Cookies are small text files which are transferred from our websites, applications or services and stored on your device. We use cookies to help us provide you with a personalised service, and to help make our websites, applications and services better for you.
Our cookies may be session cookies (temporary cookies that identify and track users within our websites, applications or services which are deleted when you close your browser or leave your session in the application or service) or persistent cookies (cookies which enable our websites, applications or services to “remember” who you are and to remember your preferences within our websites, applications or services and which will stay on your computer or device after you close your browser or leave your session in the application or service).
We use the following different types of cookies:
Strictly necessary cookies
These are cookies which are needed for our websites, applications or services to function properly, for example, these cookies allow you to access secure areas of our website or to remember what you have put into your shopping basket.
Performance cookies and analytics technologies
These cookies collect information about how visitors and users use our websites, applications and services, for instance which functionality visitors use most often, and if they get error messages from areas of the websites, applications or services. These cookies don't collect information that identifies a visitor or user. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. We only use these cookies to improve how our website, applications and services work.
Functionality cookies
These cookies allow our websites, applications and services to remember choices you make (such as your user name, language or the region you are in) and provide enhanced, more personal features. These cookies can also be used to remember changes you have made to text size, fonts and other parts of web pages that you can customise. They may also be used to provide services you have asked for. The information these cookies collect may be anonymised and they cannot track your browsing activity on other websites.
Data Usage and Restrictions
Data Usage
We use the information we collect for the purposes outlined below. Most often, our legal basis for processing your data is when it is necessary to perform a contract with you. Additionally, processing may occur as part of our legitimate business interests, such as in improving, personalising, and developing the Services, marketing new features or products that may be of interest, and promoting safety and security as described below.
Communication
We will use your information to communicate with you and send you Service notifications such as notification of transcript completion. We also use your information to provide you with assistance should you contact us for any reason. From time to time we may communicate with you regarding Service updates or changes in our business operations or of any special price offers or other information which may be of interest to you. You may notify us at any time should you wish to be excluded from such notifications.
Safety and Security
We use the information we collect to promote the safety and security of the Services, our Service Users, and other parties. For example, we may use the information to authenticate Service Users, protect against fraud and abuse, respond to a legal request or claim, conduct audits, and enforce our terms and policies.
Data Restrictions & Erasure
You have the rights of access to, rectification of or erasure of your personal data and you can request restriction of the processing concerning a data subject, object to the processing of your data and request receipt of your data for transmission to another entity, subject, of course, to our right to retain your data for billing or for any purpose required by law.
Sharing of Data
We share your personal data with others in the specific circumstances described below.
For External Processing
We may transfer personal data included in your media or work brief, to:
Sub-contracted transcribers and proof-readers, engaged by our Company and who are contractually bound by strict confidentiality and data protection clauses. In this regard also see our Terms of Service.
It is important to note that while no account information is shared with our transcribers or proof-readers directly, some personal information may be contained within the media we process in the course of providing you with the Services.
For Legal Reasons or to Prevent Harm
We may preserve or disclose information about you to comply with a law, regulation, legal process, or governmental request; to assert legal rights or defend against legal claims; or to prevent, detect, or investigate illegal activity, fraud, abuse, violations of our terms, or threats to the security of the Services or the physical safety of any person.
Security
We have taken measures listed below, to mitigate as many issues as possible when processing your data:
Data at Rest
The safety and security of your data is as important to us as if it were our own. Your provided personal information which you uploaded via our website together with your uploaded audios or videos is stored on a secure server with the necessary software security measures in place.
Your billing information through Payfast or Paypal is securely stored by those services providers and we do not have access to that information.
Data in Transit
Our website is very secure. You can click on the lock in the url bar to view our SSL Certificate.
Our SSL CERTIFCIATE Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is a protocol for enabling data encryption and site authentication on the Internet. Credit card numbers, health details and other sensitive information are transmitted only after being converted into a secure code. Domain authentication reassures site users that they're interacting with the site identified in the URL bar. Without SSL, online transactions would be vulnerable to interception by unauthorized parties. SSL is commonly used to protect communications between web browsers and servers.
Please do note, however, that due to its nature email is not a particularly secure method of communication and we cannot accept liability for loss or damage arising from any leak of data as a result of the interception or forgery of email.
Retention and Deletion
In terms of your contact and billing information, we retain this for up to five (5) years as is necessary for tax and legal purposes, or as long as your account remains open with us, whichever is the longer. All media – including audio, video, and transcripts – are stored for 60 days from date of completion or termination of a Specific Job before being deleted, unless we receive a request from you for return of the data within 30 days of that completion or termination date.
Policy Changes
We review this privacy policy regularly and reserve the right to revise it or any part of it from time to time to reflect changes in the law, information security and technology practices or in the way in which we process your personal data.
Any updates to this policy will be published on our website.
Contact
If you have any questions about this privacy policy, or want to submit a written complaint to us about how we handle your personal data, please contact our Information Officer, Paul Crowther at paul@toptranscriptions.co.za
Complaints
Complaints regarding an alleged interference with personal information may be submitted to the Regulator, in writing to inforeg@justice.gov.za or online http://www.justice.gov.za/inforeg/contact.html