Privacy policy

In short

We collect what you type into the forms on this site. We use it to answer you. We do not sell it, we do not trade it, and we do not add you to a mailing list you did not ask for. Our server keeps the ordinary technical record of each request that any web server keeps, and we do not use it to work out who you are. You can ask us what we hold about you and you can ask us to delete it.

Who is responsible for your information

The responsible party for the personal information collected through this website is ECOCLEAN STEAM SYSTEMS (Pty) Ltd, registration number 2023/101681/07, trading as EcoSteam, Eastern Cape, South Africa.

The Information Officer is the office inside the company that answers for this notice. Under the Act that role sits with the head of the business unless another person has been registered for it.

Write to the Information Officer at tanya@ecosteam.co.za. Anything you send to that address reaches the right person.

What we collect, and when

We collect what you choose to send us. There is no account to create on this site and nothing follows you around it. The only thing we hold that you did not type is the ordinary technical record a web server keeps of each request, and that is set out under Technical information below.

When you ask to talk to a specialist

Your name, and a phone number or an email address, or both if you give both. What you want to clean. Then, only if you choose to fill them in: anything specific you are struggling with, what power supply you have, which steamer you were looking at, when you would like us to call, your business name, your town, and anything else you write in the message box. You also tick a box confirming that we may contact you about the enquiry, and we keep a record of that.

The form also records when you opened it and which page of this site you sent it from. Both are there to catch automated spam, and that is the only thing they are used for. Neither is used to build a profile of you.

When you use the payback calculator

Your name, and an email address or a phone number, or both if you give both. Your business name, your town, and anything you write in the question box. You also tick a box confirming that we may contact you about the enquiry, and we keep a record of that.

The calculator sends the figures you put in to our server, which works out the answer and sends it back. This website does not save them, link them to your name or use them for anything else. If you want us to know what came out, write it in the question box yourself. Like the form on the contact page, this one records when you opened it and which page of this site you sent it from, to catch automated spam.

When you enquire about a cleaning service

Your name, and an email address or a phone number, or both if you give both. Where you are, and anything you write in the question box. If you are asking about a commercial deep clean, we ask for your business name as well. You also tick a box confirming that we may contact you about the enquiry, and we keep a record of that. Like the form on the contact page, this one records when you opened it and which page of this site you sent it from, to catch automated spam.

Technical information

Our hosting provider keeps standard web server logs, which record the address your request came from, the page you asked for and the time. That is how any web server works and we do not use those logs to build a profile of you.

When you send a form, we briefly use the address your request came from to check that the same computer is not sending hundreds of enquiries. We do not store that address with your enquiry.

Cookies, and the parts of this page that come from somewhere else

This site does not run advertising trackers and it does not set a cookie to follow you around the internet.

The fonts on this site are served from our own server, so no request goes to a font provider when you read this page.

The maps on the contact and car wash pages are provided by Google. A map does not load until you click to open it. If you open it, Google receives your request and Google's own terms apply to that. If you never click it, nothing is sent.

Why we have it, and what we do with it

We use what you send us to answer you. That means phoning or emailing you back about your enquiry, working out which steamer suits your site, and quoting you for it.

We keep a record of enquiries so that we know what we discussed with you and what we recommended, which matters when you phone us about the same steamer a year later.

We do not use it for anything else. We do not sell it, rent it or trade it. We do not add you to a marketing list because you sent us an enquiry. If we ever want to send you something that is not about your enquiry, we will ask you first, and asking first is what the law requires for direct marketing.

Who else sees it

A small number of service providers necessarily handle this information because they run the systems the site sits on:

• Our hosting provider, who stores the website and the enquiry records on their servers.
• Our email provider, because your enquiry arrives as an email.
• The agency that built and maintains this website, whose people can reach the enquiry records while doing that work.

Each of them handles it on our instruction and for that purpose only. We will also hand information over if the law requires it of us, for example under a court order. Nobody buys this information from us and nobody is given it for marketing.

How long we keep it

Enquiries and specialist requests: we keep these for as long as we have a reason to. That means while we are dealing with your enquiry, and afterwards as a record of what we discussed and what we recommended. When there is no longer a reason to hold it, we delete it.

The backup copy: every enquiry is also written to a file on the server, so that an enquiry is not lost if an email fails to send. That file holds the same information as the email, and it is kept and deleted on the same basis.

Server logs: kept for the period our hosting provider keeps them as part of running the service.

When a retention period ends, the record is deleted.

What you can ask us to do

Under the Protection of Personal Information Act you have rights over the information we hold about you. In plain terms:

• You can ask what we hold. We will tell you what personal information we have about you and where we got it.
• You can ask us to correct it. If something we hold is wrong, incomplete, misleading or out of date, tell us and we will fix it.
• You can ask us to delete it. Where we no longer have a reason to keep it, we will delete it.
• You can object to us processing it, in the circumstances the Act allows.
• You can withdraw your consent to us contacting you about an enquiry, at any time. That does not undo anything we did before you withdrew it.
• You can complain, to us first and to the Information Regulator if we do not put it right.

Ask us any of these by contacting the Information Officer at the address above. There may be a prescribed form or a fee for some kinds of request, and if there is, we will tell you what it is and help you with it.

We answer as quickly as we reasonably can, and the Act sets outer limits for some kinds of request. If yours is going to take longer than you would expect, we will tell you why.

Complaining to the Regulator

If you are not satisfied with how we have handled your information or your request, you can complain to the Information Regulator of South Africa, which is the body that oversees this Act. The Regulator publishes its contact details and its complaint form on its own website. If you come to us first, we get a chance to put it right.

Keeping it safe

The site is served over an encrypted connection, so what you type into a form is encrypted between your browser and our server. Access to the enquiry records is limited to the people who need it to answer you.

Nothing sent over the internet is completely safe. If something goes wrong with your information, we will tell you and we will tell the Regulator, which is what the Act requires.

Children

This site is aimed at businesses and adults, and we do not knowingly collect information about children through it. If you think a child has sent us personal information through this website, tell the Information Officer and we will delete it.

Changes to this page

We will update this page when what we do changes, and the date at the top will change with it. If a change materially affects what we do with information we already hold about you, we will tell the people it affects directly.

Contacting us about your information

Information Officer: tanya@ecosteam.co.za

Company: ECOCLEAN STEAM SYSTEMS (Pty) Ltd, registration number 2023/101681/07, trading as EcoSteam, Eastern Cape, South Africa.

You can also reach us through the contact page. Mark the message for the attention of the Information Officer and it will be dealt with the same way.