Legal · Protection of Personal Information Act
POPIA notice
How Abidia Engineering collects, uses, protects and destroys your personal information — and how to exercise your rights as a data subject.
Information Officer
Our Information Officer is the head of the practice, Abraham Mukokanduku (founder & managing director). All POPIA requests and complaints may be directed to info@abidia.co.za or 083 470 2027.
Why we process your information
Under the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (POPIA) we may only process personal information for a lawful purpose. We process yours to respond to enquiries, prepare fee proposals and project briefs, deliver the engineering services you appoint us for, meet statutory and professional obligations (including ECSA and tax records), and keep our website and communication secure.
Our lawful bases are performance of a contract, compliance with a legal obligation, our legitimate interests in running a consultancy, and your consent where we ask for it (for example, subscribing to updates).
What we collect
- — Your name, organisation, email address, phone number and physical address.
- — Information you include in an enquiry, project brief, WhatsApp message or CV.
- — Project information needed to design, tender or supervise works (plans, site details, professional team details).
- — Basic technical data from your browser needed to serve the site; we do not use advertising trackers.
Who we share it with
We share personal information only where it is necessary: with Abidia staff working on your project, with our delivery partner Smart Plans where they are appointed, with professional team members and contractors you have agreed to, and with our service providers (email, hosting and document storage) under written confidentiality obligations. We do not sell your information.
Cross-border transfer: where a project requires it — for example in Botswana — information may be transferred outside South Africa, but only to a destination with an adequate level of protection or with your consent.
Security and retention
We take reasonable technical and organisational measures to prevent loss, theft and unauthorised access: access-controlled accounts, secure cloud storage and encrypted transport. Information is kept only as long as it is needed for the purpose it was collected for, or as long as legislation requires — project and financial records are retained for the statutory periods, after which it is securely destroyed or de-identified.
Your rights as a data subject
Right of access
Ask us whether we hold any of your personal information, and request a copy of it.
Right to correction
Request that inaccurate, incomplete, misleading or out-of-date information be corrected or deleted.
Right to deletion
Request that we delete your personal information where it is no longer needed for the purpose it was collected.
Right to object
Object to the processing of your personal information — including for direct marketing — on reasonable grounds.
Right to withdraw consent
Withdraw any consent you have given, at any time, without affecting the lawfulness of processing before withdrawal.
Right to complain
Lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator (South Africa) if you believe your rights have been infringed.
To exercise any of these rights, email info@abidia.co.za with enough detail for us to identify you. We will respond within a reasonable time and in any case within the period required by law.
Complaints
Please contact us first so we can try to resolve it. If you are not satisfied, you may lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator (South Africa) at complaints@inforegulator.org.za or on www.inforegulator.org.za.
This notice is specific to Abidia Engineering and should be read together with our privacy policy. It may be updated when our practices or the law change; the latest version is always published on this page.