Privacy Policy

Information we collect

• Account details you provide (name, contact details, role).
• Service requests and messages you make on the platform.
• Payment information processed by our payment partners.
• Technical data (device, log and usage information) needed to run the service.
• If you offer services: your South African ID number, your name, your email address or mobile number, and photos of your face, used for identity checks (see Identity checks).

How we use it

We use your information to operate the marketplace — matching requests with providers, confirming the identity of people who offer services, enabling messaging and payment, maintaining safety and ratings, providing support, and meeting our legal obligations.

Cookies

• remembering, for up to 7 days, which SirveZone member shared the link you arrived by, so they can be credited if you sign up.

Sharing

We share the minimum necessary information with the other party to a request (for example, a provider sees the detail needed to fulfil your request) and with sub-processors who help us run the service — such as hosting, payment and communications providers — under appropriate data-protection agreements. If you offer services, we share your ID number, name, email address or mobile number, and selfie with our identity-verification partner, Smile Identity (Smile ID), which checks them on our behalf. Our current sub-processor list is maintained in the SirveZone DPA register.

Data residency

Personal information is hosted in the region appropriate to where you use the service, and cross-border transfers are made only with the safeguards the law requires. Smile Identity may process identity-check information outside South Africa; where it does, we transfer it only under the safeguards POPIA requires (section 72).

Identity checks for people who offer services

Who this applies to. If you offer services on SirveZone — as a provider, as staff, or as a business owner — we ask you to confirm your identity. We do not run identity checks on customers who book services.

Why we ask. Customers let service providers into their homes. Confirming that you are who you say you are is how SirveZone earns that trust. Once your identity is confirmed, you can be listed and taken on for work.

What we collect for the check.

• Your South African ID number.
• A photo of your face (a selfie), and a few quick photos taken while you look at the camera and smile. These quick photos show that it is really you, there and then (a "liveness" check).
• Your name, and your email address. If we have no email address for you, we use your mobile number instead.

What happens to it. We send your ID number, your selfie and the quick photos, your name and your email address (or mobile number) to our identity-verification partner, Smile Identity. Smile Identity checks that the photos are of a real person who is present, and compares your selfie with the photo linked to your ID number at the Department of Home Affairs, and tells us whether they match. It sends the result back to us, and that response can include details from your Home Affairs record. We use only the result and its reference number. We do not store the rest of the response.

The camera on this page. The selfie screen uses Smile Identity's camera tool. While you use it, your phone loads parts of that tool from Smile Identity and from services that deliver web code and fonts (Google Fonts, jsDelivr and unpkg). Like any website, those services can see your device's internet address (IP address). Your photos are not sent to them: they go to SirveZone and then to Smile Identity.

Smile Identity's own use. Smile Identity may also use this information for its own purposes: to detect and prevent identity fraud across the businesses that use it, and to improve its service. For those purposes Smile Identity decides how your information is used, not SirveZone. If you do not want that, do not start an identity check. As explained under "It is your choice", you then cannot be listed or taken on for work.

Where it is processed. Smile Identity may process your information outside South Africa. When it does, it must protect it to the standard POPIA requires.

When your photos cannot be checked. Sometimes the check cannot compare your selfie because Home Affairs has no photo for your ID number. If you agreed to this when you ticked the box, we then send only your South African ID number to VerifyNow, a South African identity-verification service, which asks Home Affairs whether it holds a photo for that number. VerifyNow processes it in South Africa (Cape Town and Johannesburg). We keep only the answer (photo or no photo), whether you have a smart ID card, VerifyNow's reference numbers and the time. We do not keep the photo, your name or anything else VerifyNow sends back.

Your face is biometric information. Using your photo to match your face is processing biometric information. POPIA treats this as special personal information (section 26). We only do it with your consent, which you give when you tick the box before a check starts (section 27(1)(a)).

It is your choice. You do not have to have your identity checked. If you choose not to, you cannot be listed or taken on for work through SirveZone. The check in the app needs a South African ID number. If you are applying as a service provider without one, you can apply with a passport or permit instead, and a person at SirveZone reviews your application.

How the decision is made. The match is made by Smile Identity's automated system. You agree to this when you tick the box. If you do not agree, you cannot offer services through SirveZone. If you think the result is wrong, contact us.

What we keep.

• The result of the check, and Smile Identity's reference number for it.
• Your selfie and the quick photos, in private storage that is not publicly accessible. Only authorised SirveZone staff can open them, through a link that expires after 15 minutes.
• Your consent, and when you gave it.

We do not keep the rest of Smile Identity's response.

Your profile photo is a separate choice. You can let us use your verified selfie as your public profile photo, so customers see the verified you. That is optional. Saying no does not stop your identity check.

How long we keep it. We keep identity-check records for five years after you stop offering services through SirveZone, because the Financial Intelligence Centre Act requires it. Once that period has ended, you can ask us to delete them.

Changing your mind. You can withdraw your consent at any time. We will then run no further checks, and your confirmed identity is paused until you give consent again. Withdrawing does not undo checks already run, and it does not cancel records the law requires us to keep.

Your rights

Subject to applicable law, you may request access to, correction of, or deletion of your personal information, and object to certain processing. Records we must keep by law cannot be deleted early. To exercise these rights, contact us using the details below. You may also lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator (South Africa).

Retention & security

We keep personal information only as long as needed for the purposes above or as required by law, and we apply appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect it. Identity-check records are kept for five years after you stop offering services, as the Financial Intelligence Centre Act requires.

Contact

Our Information Officer is Pieter van Zyl. For privacy questions or to exercise your rights, email info@sirve.zone.