Privacy Policy

The responsible party for your personal information is Ryan Geustyn, trading as NODE Systems, assisted by his parent or guardian, trading as NODE Systems. Privacy contact: privacy@nodesystems.co.za. General contact: hello@nodesystems.co.za.

This policy follows the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (POPIA). It covers our website nodesystems.co.za and the NODE Systems client portal at portal.nodesystems.co.za.

Blueprint and improvement requests: your business or project name; your email address; an optional WhatsApp number; your line of work; the style, layout, pages, colours and package you choose; any description or links you write; any logo you upload; and the brief we generate from your choices.

Founding 5 sign-ups: your name, an optional business name, your email, an optional WhatsApp number, and a record that you ticked the box agreeing that we may email you about that offer.

Client portal: if you become a client, we keep your login email, your requests and messages, files and photos you upload, your website details and brand kit (colours, fonts and logo), invoices and payment confirmations (including any proof of payment you upload), agreements and your signed copies, bookings made through your website, and settings you choose.

Booking and quote forms on client websites: the details a visitor types in (for example name, phone, email, the car or service, and the time chosen). We handle these for the business that owns the website.

Business contacts we find ourselves: we collect publicly listed details of businesses (business name, category, phone number, email address, website and address) from public Google Maps listings using a data-collection tool. We use them only to ask once whether the business would like a free website concept (see section 5).

Email: if you email us, we keep that email and your contact details.

We do not ask for ID numbers, bank card numbers or other sensitive information through the website.

To reply to your request, prepare a proposal or concept, and, if you become a client, to design, build, host and support your website, run the portal, bookings, invoices and agreements, and look after our records.

To keep our systems safe and stop spam and abuse (for example a bot check and limits on how often a form can be sent).

We do not sell your information.

We use service providers (operators) to run our services: Cloudflare (hosting, the bot check, website traffic statistics that do not use tracking cookies, and email forwarding); Supabase (our database and private file storage; our project is hosted in Frankfurt, Germany); Resend (sending our emails; the provider may process email data outside South Africa, including in the United States and the European Union); and a messaging app that sends generic alerts to the owner's phone (the alerts contain no personal details).

Some providers process information outside South Africa. We choose providers that protect personal information to a similar standard as POPIA and, where required, we have agreements with them.

On a client's website, the visitor details collected for that business are shared with that business. We may also disclose information if the law requires it.

We do not send marketing by email, WhatsApp or SMS to people who have not agreed to it or are not our customers, except for one message that asks permission. When we find a business on Google Maps we may send it a single message that only asks whether it would like a free website concept. The message says who we are, that we found the business on Google Maps, and how to stop us.

If you do not reply, we do not contact you again, and we delete the details we collected within 30 days. If you say yes, we send you the concept and keep your details to serve you.

When you sign up on our website you can tick an optional box to receive news, offers and promotions from NODE Systems. The box is not ticked unless you tick it, and signing up works the same either way. We only send promotions to people who ticked it. You can change your choice at any time in the Settings page of your portal (News and offers) or by emailing hello@nodesystems.co.za, and you can stop promotions in the ways described below.

You can stop all contact at any time, for free and straight away: reply STOP, use the link in our message, press the Unsubscribe button in your email app, go to nodesystems.co.za/optout and enter your phone number or email address, or email hello@nodesystems.co.za. When you stop, we keep only a scrambled code (a hash) of your phone number or email address on a block list so that we never contact you or import you again. The code cannot be turned back into your details.

The website sets no advertising cookie unless you choose Allow in the cookie notice. If you allow it, a TikTok pixel measures how our TikTok adverts perform (it sees that you visited and whether you sent a form; TikTok may use cookies and process this under its own privacy policy). If you choose No thanks, or ignore the notice, the pixel is never loaded, and your choice is remembered in your browser. Our traffic statistics (Cloudflare Web Analytics) are designed not to use cookies or track you across sites. The client portal uses cookies that are needed to keep you signed in and to remember settings you choose, such as how long you stay signed in. Our Founding 5 pop-up remembers in your browser that you closed it or signed up so that we do not keep showing it. Our bot check (Cloudflare Turnstile) runs when you send a form.

Blueprint, improvement and Founding 5 requests that do not lead to work: 12 months, then we delete them. Business contacts collected from Google Maps who do not reply: 30 days. Client records: for as long as the agreement runs and for the period the law requires us to keep business and tax records. Invoices and signed agreements are kept for that legal period. Bookings made through a client's website are kept for as long as the client's website runs, and are deleted when the website ends unless the law says otherwise. A block list of scrambled codes is kept so that we can honour opt-outs.

We take reasonable technical and organisational steps to protect personal information, such as access controls, separate private storage for client files, a second sign-in step for our administrator account, and encrypted connections. No system is perfectly secure. If there is a breach that affects you, we will tell you and the Information Regulator as POPIA requires.

You can ask us to tell you what personal information we hold about you, to correct it, or to delete it, and you can object to how we use it or withdraw your consent. Email hello@nodesystems.co.za or privacy@nodesystems.co.za. Clients can also download their data and ask for deletion in the portal settings.

If you are unhappy with how we handled your information, you can complain to the Information Regulator of South Africa (inforegulator.org.za).

Our services are for businesses and adults. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children without the consent of a parent or guardian.

We may update this policy. The date at the top shows the latest version.