This privacy statement explains the information that is collected by Vodacom through the V by Vodafone application (‘App’). We have privacy statements for our respective Connected Devices that we will present to you as you add a new device to your account. You can view this statement, and the statement for our Connected Devices in the Settings Menu of the App at any time.

Changes to our privacy policy

This Privacy Policy gets updated from time to time; whenever we make a change, we’ll update the content and let you know.

Who we are

We are Vodacom (Pty) Ltd. We are part of the Vodafone Group.

In this privacy policy:

  • “we/us” means Vodacom (Pty) Ltd;
  • “third party” means someone who is not you or us; and
  • “Vodafone Group” means Vodafone Group Plc

Our registered office is Vodacom (Pty) Ltd. We are registered in South Africa ; company registration number – 1993/003367/07

Our main switchboard is +2711 2826000 or you can visit our website on www.vodacom.co.za

Personal information we collect about you

Address Book

When our customers upload their address book to the V by Vodafone App, we collect your information. You will receive an SMS alert if they subsequently add you as a Trusted Contact for one of our V Products.

We will receive the following information about you:

  • Your mobile phone number;
  • Your full name; and
  • (If provided) your relationship to our customer (for example, mother or spouse)
  • We will not use your data for purposes other than adding them to services when requested by the account holder.

You can remove yourself as a Trusted Contact at any time by either:

  • Asking our customer to remove you from their list;
  • Asking an agent when you are contacted (please quote the ID provided in your SMS alert); or
  • Request removal via customer services via www.vodacom.co.za

Information we collect about you

The types of information we process about you when you use your V by Vodafone App are:

  • Your name, address, mobile number, date of birth and email address;
  • If we need to verify your identity, documentation such as a passport or other identification;
  • Your account information, such as the number of connected SIMs you have with us and dates of payment owed or received;
  • Your credential information such as passwords, hints and similar security information used for authentication and access to accounts and services;
  • Any photos you upload to personalise your Connected Devices’ accounts;
  • Your preferences for particular products or services when you tell us what they are, or we assume what they are, based on how you use the products and services (see Marketing & profiling);
  • Customer care information through your contact with us, such as a note or recording of a call you make to one of our contact centres;
  • Information about your mobile device each time you use the App. For example, we may collect information on the type of mobile device that you are using and its unique device identifier (for example, the IMEI number, the device’s mobile phone number, or the MAC address of the device’s wireless network interface);
  • Information about your usage of the App, such as how often you use it; and
  • Your location data. This can be precise where it uses Global Positioning System (GPS) data or by identifying nearby mobile phone masts and Wi-Fi hotspots. Or less precise where, for example, a location is derived from your IP address or data such as a post code or name of a town or city.

We’ll also get information about how you use our products and services, such as:

  • The level of service that you receive – for example, network or service faults and other events that may affect our network services or other services;
  • Details of your use of our services – for example, we can see the amount of data your devices are using which we can use to assess what sorts of data allowances we need to provide for different Connected Devices; and
  • We also collect anonymous analytics information on how our customers use the V by Vodafone App in order to improve your experience and troubleshoot.

When we collect your personal information

We collect your personal information when:

  • You buy a connected product from us (online, or in store);
  • You first register your Connected Device product in the V by Vodafone App;
  • If you’re a non-Vodacom customer, when we verify your identity and you add your payment details;
  • You grant the App access to your camera (for taking pictures for ID verification) or your device’s photo album (if you want to add personalised pictures to your Connected Devices’ accounts);
  • You use the V by Vodafone Application; or
  • You subscribe to marketing.

Third party sources of data

Where necessary, we collect information from certain organisations. These include fraud-prevention agencies, business directories and credit reference agencies.

Vodacom will process your personal data based on:

  1. The performance of your contract or to enter into the contract and to take action on your requests. For example, we’ll need to process your payment details for your monthly billing.
  2. Vodacom’s legitimate business interests, for example, fraud prevention, maintaining the security of our network and services, direct marketing, and improvement of our services. Whenever we rely on this lawful basis to process your data, we assess our business interests to make sure they do not override your rights. Additionally, in some cases you have the right to object to this processing. For more information, visit www.vodacom.co.za for this policy.
  3. Compliance with a mandatory legal obligation, including for example accounting and tax requirements, which are subject to strict internal policies (such as retention periods), procedures, and your right to restrict usage of your data, which control the scope of legal assistance to be provided; or
  4. Consent you provide where Vodacom does not rely on another legal basis. Consent is always presented to you separately and you can withdraw your consent at any time.

How we use your personal information

To provide you with your service

We use your information for service provision and to fulfil any purchases you have made:

  • to help us identify you and any accounts you hold with us;
  • billing and customer care;
  • to notify you of any changes to the App or to our services that may affect you; and
  • identity verification.

Marketing & profiling

If you are opted into marketing and given us permission to use your data to tailor these communications, we’ll use your interactions with this App and data from your Connected Devices to inform the sorts of marketing we should be sending you so that it’s the most relevant for you.

To opt out of Marketing messages or profiling:

If you no longer want to receive marketing messages from Vodacom, you can elect to opt out of all marketing communications or only selected methods (email, messaging or phone).

There are various ways to opt out:

  • If you are a Vodacom consumer mobile customer, you can log in to your My Account to manage your marketing permissions and to opt out or into receiving personalised marketing. For customers without a Vodacom mobile number, you can manage your permissions in the V by Vodafone App.
  • Contact our customer services team via www.vodacom.co.za;
  • All our marketing messages come with an “unsubscribe” link which you can click to unsubscribe;

Opting out does not mean that you won’t any longer receive service-related messages, such as messages telling you about your order status or when our Terms & Conditions change. You will still continue to receive those (unless we have indicated otherwise).

Other profiling and automated processing

Outside of the profiling we conduct for marketing purposes to tailor and personalise the communications we send, we also profile you for credit, fraud and security purposes.

This can sometimes use systems to make automated decisions based on personal information we have or are allowed to collect from others. The goal is to make the decisions as quick, efficient, fair and correct as possible, based on what we know. It can affect the products or services we may offer you now or in the future.

  • We will carry out a credit check when you apply for a contract for your products and services with us.
  • If you are not already a Vodacom customer, we will use your personal information for identity verification purposes. This will be prompted to you on first registration of a connected device within the V by Vodacom. We also use this verification for access to your account and for general account management.
  • We will process your personal data in order to protect against and detect fraud, and to recover debts or trace those who owe us money resulting from the use of our services.

Service improvement

  • We collect anonymous, de-identified or aggregate information in order to improve the service we offer to everyone. None of these analytics are linked back to you in any way.
  • To protect our networks and manage the volumes of calls, texts and other uses of our networks. For example, we identify peak periods of use so we can try and ensure the networks can handle the volume at those times; and
  • To understand how you use our networks, products and services. That way we can seek to review, develop and improve these, develop more interesting and relevant products and services, as well as personalising our products and services.

How do we share your personal information?

Where applicable, we share information about you with:

  • Companies in the Vodafone Group;
  • Partners, suppliers or agents involved in delivering the products and services you’ve ordered or used;
  • Credit reference, fraud-prevention or business-scoring agencies, or other credit scoring agencies;
  • Law enforcement agencies, government bodies, regulatory organisations, courts or other public authorities if we have to, or are authorised to by law.

We also share aggregate performance information with third party V by Vodacom partners to understand how products and the V by Vodacom offering is performing commercially. For example, if we know that certain products are selling well, we can focus on partnering with more partners that cater to the market. This information does not identify you personally.

International data transfer

If you are a non- Vodacom customer and we need to verify your identity, we will need to transfer your data to our service provider, which is based in India. Additionally our customer care centres are run by Vodafone Shared Services which is based in Hungary, Egypt, India and Romania.

When Vodacom sends your information to a country that is not in the EEA, we make sure that your information is properly protected. We will always ensure that there is a proper legal agreement that covers the data transfer. In addition, if the country is not considered to have laws that are equivalent to EU data protection standards then we will ask the third party to enter into a legal agreement that reflects those standards.

How long do we keep your personal information for?

We’ll store and process your information for as long as we have to by law or as long as we need to be able to deliver you the services you have requested. We’ll keep some personal information for a reasonable period after your contract with us has finished in case you decide to use our services again. We, or one of our partners, may contact you about Vodacom services during this time if you haven’t opted out of receiving marketing communications from us. Once these bases have expired, we’ll delete that information.

Keeping your personal information secure

We have specialised security teams who constantly review and improve our measures to protect your personal information from unauthorised access, accidental loss, disclosure or destruction.

Communications over the internet (such as emails) aren’t secure unless they’ve been encrypted. Your communications may go through a number of countries before being delivered, as this is the nature of the internet.

We cannot accept responsibility for any unauthorised access or loss of personal information that is beyond our control.

We’ll never ask for your secure personal or account information by an unsolicited means of communication. You’re responsible for keeping your personal and account information secure and not sharing it with others.

Our website may provide links to third-party websites. We cannot be responsible for the security and content of such third-party websites. So make sure you read that company’s privacy and cookies policies before using or putting your personal information on their site.

The same applies to any third-party websites or content you connect to using our products and services.

You may choose to disclose your information in certain ways such as social plug-ins (including those offered by Google, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest) or using third-party services that allow you to post reviews or other information publicly, and a third party could use that information.

Social plug-ins and social applications are operated by the social network themselves and are subject to their own terms of use and privacy and cookies policies. You should make sure you’re familiar with these.

Our cookie policy

How we use cookies

A cookie is a small text file which is placed onto your mobile (or other electronic device) when you access our App. We use cookies on our App to recognise you whenever you visit the App (this speeds up your access to the App as you do not have to log on each time).

Our cookies don’t hold personal information such as your name or bank details. They simply let us find information about your browsing experience that we can associate to you if you are logged in.

To do this we sometimes use persistent cookies. We take looking after your personal information seriously – we’re always monitoring and improving how we protect it.

We’ve put our cookies into the following categories, to make it easier for you to understand why we need them:

  1. Strictly necessary – these are used to help make our website work efficiently
  2. Performance – these are used to analyse the way our website works and how we can improve it
  3. Functionality – these help to enhance your experience by doing things like remembering products you’ve added to your basket
  4. Targeting/advertising – these are used to share some information with third parties who we advertise with, so we know how you’ve reached our website. We can also use cookies to identify the parts of the website you’re interested in. We then use this information to show you adverts and pages we think may also be of interest to you, to tailor how we communicate with you, or to tailor the contents of the communications we send to you. If you prefer, you can opt out of these. Tailoring of content means it includes information reflecting the interest you’ve shown in the content of our web pages, or offers or promotions that we think may interest you, and to improve how we respond to your needs.

Controlling your cookies

You can control how you use cookies in your browser or your device settings.

If you change your cookie settings in your browser, your experience with us won’t be tracked.

Information on controlling and deleting cookies is also available at http://allaboutcookies.org

Chatz Connect