S.A.S.S

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Privacy Policy

Welcome to The South African Society of Stomates (SASS), an online platform to support ostomates, their family caregivers & friends. By participating on sasstomates.org.za you acknowledge that you have read, understood, and agree to our Privacy Policy.

Who we are

https://sasstomates.org.za is owned by the South African Society of Stomates (SASS).

When you register on our website, an account is also created on the website which allows you access to the content and forums used.

This privacy notice is to let you know how SASS promises to look after your personal information. This includes what you tell us about yourself. This notice explains how we do this and tells you about your privacy rights and how the law protects you. Users of this website do so at their own discretion and provide any such personal details requested at their own discretion. Your personal information is kept private and stored securely until a time it is no longer required or has no use, as detailed in the General Data Protection Regulation 2018.

What data will the website collect?

We ask for some data at the registration stage that will help us improve our communication to you, but this is not mandatory, and you can use the website without providing the information. From time to time, SASS will be sending our surveys to help SASS establish an unbiased approach to the Advocacy and Support needed by our Ostomy Community

Our Privacy Promise

We promise:

• To keep your data safe and private.
• Not to sell your personal information

  • Information gathered from Surveys; other than your personal identifiable information such as contact details, may be shared with Third Parties in an effort to improve, or support the standard of living with a stoma

How the law protects you.

As well as our Privacy Promise, your privacy is protected by law. This section explains how that works.

Data Protection law says that we can use personal information only if we have a proper reason to do so. The law says we must have one or more of these reasons:

  • When it is in our legitimate interest, or
  • When it is our legal duty, or
  • When you consent to it, or
  • To fulfil a contract, we have with you.

A legitimate interest is when we have a business or commercial reason to use your information. But even then, it must not unfairly go against what is right and best for you.

Where we collect personal information from

The personal information we have for you is made up of what you tell us, and data we collect when you use our services. We need to collect your email address and username when you register for the website.

Any other information is only collected with your permission, at your discretion and is not required for you to use the website.

Sharing your data with third parties for their own purposes

We may also be required to disclose your personal data to the police or other enforcement, regulatory or Government bodies, in your country of origin or elsewhere, upon a valid request to do so.

These requests are assessed on a case-by-case basis and take the privacy of our customers into consideration.
For further information please contact our Data Protection Office using the contact information shown in the How to get a copy of your personal information section.

Marketing

We will not use the information provided to sell products and or services. Our communication with you is to provide information and inform about products and services relevant to the Ostomy Community in South Africa.

Email newsletter

This website operates an opt-in email newsletter program, used to inform subscribers about products, services & information supplied by this website. Users can subscribe through an online automated process should they wish to do so but do so at their own discretion.

Every effort has been made to ensure a safe and secure form to email submission process, but we do advise users using this form to email processes that they do so at their own risk.

This website and its owners use any information submitted to provide you with further information about the products / services they offer or to assist you in answering any questions or queries you may have submitted. This includes using your details to subscribe you to any email newsletter program the website operates but only if this was made clear to you and your express permission was granted when submitting any form to email process.

Some subscriptions may be manually processed through prior written agreement with the user.

We use a third-party provider, HUBSPOT, to deliver our monthly e-newsletter
Subscriptions are taken in compliance with UK Spam Laws detailed in the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003. All personal details relating to subscriptions are held securely and in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation 2018.
Under the General Data Protection Regulation 2018 you may request a copy of personal information held about you by this website’s email newsletter program. If you would like a copy of the information held on you, please write to the business address at the bottom of this policy.
Email marketing campaigns published by this website or its owners may contain tracking facilities within the actual email. Subscriber activity is tracked and stored in a database for future analysis and evaluation. Such tracked activity may include; the opening of emails, forwarding of emails, the clicking of links within the email content, times, dates, frequency of activity and other unlisted activity. This information is used to refine future email campaigns and supply the user with more relevant content based around their activity.
In compliance with South African Government Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013, subscribers are given the opportunity to un-subscribe at any time through an automated system. This process is detailed at the footer of each email campaign. If an automated un-subscription system is unavailable clear instructions on how to un-subscribe will by detailed instead.

External links

Although this website only looks to include quality, safe and relevant external links, users should always adopt a policy of caution before clicking any external web links mentioned throughout this website.

The owners of this website cannot guarantee or verify the contents of any externally linked website despite their best efforts. Users should therefore note they click on external links at their own risk and this website and its owners cannot be held liable for any damages or implications caused by visiting any external links mentioned.

Social Media Platforms

Communication, engagement and actions taken through external social media platforms that this website and its owners participate on, are custom to the terms and conditions as well as the privacy policies held with each social media platform respectively.

Users are advised to use social media platforms wisely and communicate / engage upon them with due care and caution regarding their own privacy and personal details. This website nor its owners will ever ask for personal or sensitive information through social media platforms and encourage users wishing to discuss sensitive details to contact them through primary communication channels such as by telephone or email.


This website may use social sharing buttons which help share web content directly from web pages to the social media platform in question. Users are advised before using such social sharing buttons that they do so at their own discretion and note that the social media platform may track and save your request to share a web page respectively through your social media platform account.

Shortened Links in Social Media

This website and its owners through their social media platform accounts may share web links to relevant web pages. By default, some social media platforms shorten lengthy URL’s [web addresses].

Users are advised to take caution and good judgement before clicking any shortened URL’s published on social media platforms by this website and its owners. Despite the best efforts to ensure only genuine URL’s are published many social media platforms are prone to spam and hacking and therefore this website and its owners cannot be held liable for any damages or implications caused by visiting any shortened links.

How long we keep your personal information

We will keep your personal information for as long as you are a member of the South African Society of Stomates.
After you stop being a subscriber, we may keep your data for up to 7 years for one of these reasons:

• To respond to any questions or complaints.
• To maintain records according to rules that apply to us.

We may keep your data for longer than 7 years if we cannot delete it for legal, regulatory or technical reasons. We may also keep it for research or statistical purposes. If we do, we will make sure that your privacy is protected and only use it for these purposes.

How to get a copy of your personal information

You can access your personal information we hold by writing to us via email sasstomates@gmail.com.

What if you want us to stop using your personal information?

You have the right to object to our use of your personal information, or to ask us to delete, remove, or stop using your personal information if there is no need for us to keep it. This is known as the ‘right to object’ and ‘right to erasure’, or the ‘right to be forgotten’.
There may be legal or other official reasons why we need to keep or use your data. But please tell us if you think that we should not be using it.
We may sometimes be able to restrict the use of your data. This means that it can only be used for certain things, such as legal claims or to exercise legal rights. In this situation, we would not use or share your information in other ways while it is restricted.
You can ask us to restrict the use of your personal information if:
• It is not accurate.
• It has been used unlawfully but you don’t want us to delete it.
• It is not relevant any more, but you want us to keep it for use in legal claims.
• You have already asked us to stop using your data but you are waiting for us to tell you if we are allowed to keep on using it.
If you want to object to how we use your data, or ask us to delete it or restrict how we use it or, please contact our Data Protection Office using the contact information shown in the How to get a copy of your personal information section.

Facebook Pixel

We use Facebook ads from time to time to help direct users to pages of interest on our website. Facebook may use cookies or web beacons to collect or receive information from our website. We use that information to compile reports and help us target our advertising more effectively. For full information visit Facebook. To opt out visit http://www.youronlinechoices.com/

How to withdraw your consent

You can withdraw your consent at any time. Please contact our Data Protection Office using the contact information shown in the How to get a copy of your personal information section if you wish to do so.

How to lodge a formal complaint

Please let us know if you are unhappy with how we have used your personal information. You can contact our Data Protection Office using the contact information shown in the How to get a copy of your personal information section.

You also have the right to complain to the Information Regulator (South Africa) Office. Find out on their website how to report a concern.