Privacy Policy

1. What This Policy Covers

This Policy applies to personal information collected through the Website only. It does not cover any third-party website that may be linked from the Website. If you click a link to a third-party site, that site’s privacy policy applies.

2. Personal Information We Collect

Bluenode collects only the personal information that you choose to provide through the contact form on the Website. This includes:

• Your name.
• Your email address.
• Your business name (where supplied).
• Your phone number (where supplied).
• Any additional information you choose to include in the message field.

We do not collect special personal information (as defined in POPIA) through the Website, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of 18.

3. How We Use Your Personal Information

We use your personal information for the following purposes only:

• To respond to the enquiry you have submitted.
• To follow up on that enquiry, including by email, WhatsApp, or phone where you have provided those details.
• To keep an internal record of enquiries received, for business administration and audit purposes.

We do not use your personal information for marketing unless you have separately and expressly opted in to marketing communications, and we will not add you to any mailing list as a result of submitting an enquiry.

4. Legal Basis for Processing

We process your personal information on the following lawful bases under POPIA:

• Consent: you have submitted the contact form voluntarily and agreed to this Privacy Policy.
• Performance of a contract or steps prior to entering into a contract: where your enquiry relates to a potential or existing engagement with Bluenode.
• Legitimate interests: to run and protect our business, prevent abuse of the contact form, and maintain a record of business correspondence.

5. Third Parties Who May Process Your Information

To deliver the Website and respond to your enquiry, we rely on the following third-party processors. Each operates under its own privacy and security commitments:

• Vercel Inc. (United States): Website hosting and content delivery. Vercel may process your IP address and basic request information as part of serving the Website. See vercel.com/legal/privacy-policy.
• Afrihost (Pty) Ltd (South Africa): domain registration and DNS where Bluenode has registered the domain on the Client’s behalf. Afrihost processes domain administration information only.
• Resend, Inc. (United States): transactional email delivery. When you submit the contact form, Resend processes the form data to deliver the notification email to Bluenode and the confirmation email to you. See resend.com/legal/privacy-policy.
• Cloudflare, Inc. (United States): DNS, content delivery, and security. Cloudflare may process your IP address, user agent, and basic request metadata for security and performance. See cloudflare.com/privacypolicy.

We do not sell, rent, or share your personal information with any third party for commercial or marketing purposes. We will only share your personal information outside of the processors listed above where required by law, regulation, or a court order.

6. Cross-Border Transfers

Some of the processors listed in Section 5 are located outside South Africa. By submitting personal information through the Website, you acknowledge that your personal information may be transferred to and processed in those jurisdictions. We rely on the contractual and technical safeguards offered by each provider to keep your information secure.

7. How Long We Keep Your Information

We keep enquiry data for 1 (one) year from the date you submitted the contact form, after which it is deleted from our active systems. If your enquiry has led to an active engagement, we keep correspondence for longer in line with our Service Agreement and the South African Income Tax Act, which requires us to keep financial records for 5 (five) years from the date of issue.

You may request earlier deletion of your information at any time by emailing info@bluenode.co.za, subject to any retention obligations we have under law.

8. How We Protect Your Information

• All connections to the Website use HTTPS encryption.
• Security headers are configured on the Website to reduce common web-based attacks.
• The contact form is protected by honeypot spam filtering and rate limiting.
• Access to enquiry data is limited to authorised Bluenode personnel.
• Credentials, API keys, and sensitive client information are stored in a password manager and not in plain text email or chat.

No system is perfectly secure. While we use reasonable measures to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee absolute security.

9. Cookies and Tracking

The Website uses only essential cookies required for the Website to work. If analytics or marketing tracking is added in future, it will only load after you have actively clicked “Accept” on a cookie consent banner. You may decline analytics at any time by clearing your browser cookies and refusing the banner.

10. Your Rights Under POPIA

You have the following rights in relation to your personal information:

• Right of access: you may ask for confirmation of whether we hold your personal information and, where we do, a copy of that information.
• Right to correction: you may ask us to correct any personal information that is inaccurate, irrelevant, excessive, out of date, incomplete, misleading, or obtained unlawfully.
• Right to deletion: you may ask us to delete or destroy personal information that we are no longer authorised to retain.
• Right to object: you may object to the processing of your personal information on reasonable grounds.
• Right to withdraw consent: where processing is based on your consent, you may withdraw that consent at any time.
• Right to lodge a complaint: you may lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator (see Section 12).

To exercise any of these rights, email info@bluenode.co.za with your request. We will respond within 30 (thirty) calendar days. We may need to verify your identity before acting on a request.

11. Data Breach Notification

If we become aware of any actual or suspected breach of security involving your personal information, we will:

• Take reasonable steps to investigate, contain, and mitigate the impact of the breach.
• Notify the South African Information Regulator as required by POPIA.
• Notify you as soon as reasonably possible where the breach is likely to affect you, and in any event within 72 hours of becoming aware of it.

12. Information Regulator Contact Details

Authority

The Information Regulator (South Africa)

Website

inforegulator.org.za

Complaints Email

POPIAComplaints@inforegulator.org.za

General Enquiries

enquiries@inforegulator.org.za

13. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Policy from time to time. The current version is always published on the Website and the “Last Updated” date at the top of this Policy shows when it last changed. Material changes will be brought to your attention through the Website where reasonably possible.

14. Contact Us

For any question about this Privacy Policy or how we handle your personal information, contact us:

• Email: info@bluenode.co.za
• WhatsApp (only): +27 75 210 4147
• Web: www.bluenode.co.za