Privacy notice

Version 2026-11-02Replaces the version of 21 October 2026

Helderberg Social is a volunteer-run community site, app and WhatsApp community. We collect as little as we can, keep it only as long as it is useful, and never sell it. This notice is the plain-language account of what that means under the Protection of Personal Information Act, 4 of 2013 (POPIA). It covers the website, the app, the Helderberg Social WhatsApp number, the email and WhatsApp updates, and the community's WhatsApp groups.

Who is responsible

Responsible party and information officer: Corne Kruger, who runs Helderberg Social as a private individual.
Contact: cornekruger1@gmail.com, or the form on the site.
Requests for records under the Promotion of Access to Information Act are explained in the PAIA manual.

In short

What	Why	Kept for
Email or number for updates	To send the updates you asked for	Until you unsubscribe
Account: name, age, email, mobile, password (scrambled)	To run your account	Until you delete it
Home address (encrypted) for vetting	To check you live in the Helderberg before you join the groups	Until you delete your account; 30 days if not accepted
Name and email on a submitted event or listing	To confirm it came from you	90 days after it is decided
Messages in the community's groups	Questions, events, and scam and spam checks	Not kept, except a scam or spam record (1 year)
Pages and screens you open while signed in	To see what is used	90 days
Browser and device record	To enforce blocks on abusers	400 days after it was last seen
Connection address of a sign-in	Security	30 days
Backups of all of the above	To recover from a failure	30 days

Our lawful bases under section 11 of POPIA are: your consent (updates, vetting, contacts, calendar); what is needed to give you the service you asked for (your account, your events); and our legitimate interest in running a safe, useful community (the safety records, the scam checks in the groups, and events gathered from public posts). You can object to processing based on legitimate interest at any time (your rights).

Browsing the site

The pages are static files. We run no advertising and no tracking cookies, and we do not use Google Analytics or any similar service.

Page counts: each page sends our own server one small message saying which page was opened, so we can see which parts of the site are used. It carries no name, no cookie and no referrer. The server counts one visitor per day by hashing your connection address with a key that changes daily, so the count cannot be traced back to you or joined across days. Pressing one of a handful of buttons sends the same kind of message: the name of the button, and the event it belongs to if it was on an event. That is how we can tell that a calendar file was downloaded. Those messages keep no identifier at all. Counts are kept for 400 days.

The browser record: to be able to keep out somebody who has abused the site or a member, your browser is given a random id, kept in its local storage. With each page it sends that id and a short description of the browser: its user-agent text, language, screen size and time zone. Our server keeps a record of each browser it has seen: a hash of the random id, a hash of the description, the user-agent text, when it was first and last seen, and how many pages it opened. It is not joined to your name unless you sign in on that browser (then the account pages can show which browsers an account used). It is used only to refuse a browser that has been blocked (Keeping the site safe). A record is deleted 400 days after the browser was last seen. Clearing your browser's site data gives it a new id.

Signed in: while you are signed in, the same message adds the page's address to the list Pages you have opened on your account (Member accounts).

Your browser keeps a short-lived copy of the events list in its session storage so pages load faster; it is cleared when you close the tab. The site loads fonts from Google Fonts, the map library from cdnjs (Cloudflare) and map tiles from OpenStreetMap; those services see your connection address when your browser fetches from them, under their own privacy terms.

Email and WhatsApp updates

What we keep: your email address or, if you chose WhatsApp, your phone number; how often you want updates, how far ahead, and the towns and interests you chose.

Why: to send you the digest you asked for, and nothing else. We start sending only after you confirm (double opt-in).

WhatsApp: updates on WhatsApp are sent through Meta's WhatsApp Business Platform, so your number and the messages pass through Meta under WhatsApp's business terms. We send nothing until you tap Confirm on the first message. Replies are handled automatically. A log of the messages exchanged with your number (the number, the text and its direction) is kept for 180 days so a problem can be looked into.

How long: until you unsubscribe. An address or number that is never confirmed is deleted after three days. Every email has an unsubscribe link and every WhatsApp update an Unsubscribe button; using either deletes your record outright.

Adding a listing or event

What we keep: the listing or event details you give us, plus your name and email address so we can confirm the submission came from you and ask about details.

What is published: the listing or event only. Your name and email address are never shown on the site.

How long: your name and email are removed from our records 90 days after we approve or decline the submission. Submissions that are never confirmed by email are deleted after three days. A declined event is deleted after 180 days, and a published one a year after it took place.

If you send us a poster: you can upload a picture of a poster and we will read the event off it to fill the form in for you. The picture is read on our own server, by our own software, and not kept, published or sent to anyone else. Only the words it fills into the form are kept, and only if you go on to submit the event.

Private events

What they are: an event a member starts for the people they invite. It is not on the site or in the app's lists, search engines are asked not to index it, and we do not check it before it goes up. It can only be opened with its own link, which the member shares.

What people with the link see: the event details, the organiser's first name, and how many people are coming (a count, never names). If the organiser turns on the WhatsApp button, anyone with the link can also see and message the organiser's verified mobile number. The organiser sees the names and contact details of the people who say they are coming, only so they can tell them if the event moves or is called off.

How long: a private event and its guest list are deleted 90 days after the event ends, or when the organiser deletes it or their account. Anyone with the link can report a private event to us. A report keeps the reason given and a hash of the reporter's address, so one person cannot send the same report over and over.

Member accounts

What we keep: your name and surname, your age, email address, mobile number, your home address as proof of residence (see Vetting), a scrambled form of your password (we cannot read it back), the date you joined and last signed in, the events you post, and, for each sign-in, the connection address it came from. Your age is used only to see who the site is for and to keep it for adults; it is never shown on the site, and other members, moderators and community admins never see it. You can change it under Your details.

Why both an email and a number: the number is how the app signs you in; the email is how we send you a code if you forget your password. Neither is shown on the site, except that if you start a private event and turn on its WhatsApp button, your verified number is on that event's page for the people with its link. We do not use your number for marketing. Proving your number sends a one-time code as a WhatsApp message; codes are kept only in scrambled form and expire after a few minutes.

Pages you have opened: while you are signed in we keep a list of which pages of the site you open, so we can see which parts of it are worth the work. It is the address of the page and the time, never the query part of an address, so a search you typed or a private event's secret link never goes into it. You can read the whole list, switch it off and erase it yourself under Your account → Pages you have opened; switching it off erases what is already there. We erase it after 90 days in any case, and it goes with your account if you delete it.

What we send you: a confirmation link when you register, a reset link if you ask for one, and a note when an event of yours is published or declined (in the app, as a notification). When you register, the box Send me the weekly Helderberg events email is ticked for you; untick it and you get none. Every one of those emails has a one-click unsubscribe link.

How long: for as long as you keep the account. The connection address of a sign-in is kept for 30 days and then erased. You can delete your account yourself under Account: that removes your details, your sign-ins, your vetting details and any event that is not yet published. Published events stay on the site with your name and email removed from them. Accounts that are never confirmed by email are deleted after three days.

Vetting and proof of residence

What we ask for: when you create an account we ask for your first name(s), surname, age, email address, mobile number and home address: street, suburb, town and postal code. The address is your proof of residence. We do not ask for documents.

Why: the community's WhatsApp groups are for adults who live in the Helderberg, so somebody checks that you do before you can ask to join them. The address is never shown on the site, in the app or in the groups, never used for marketing, and never sold or shared.

Your member number: you get a five-digit member number, which you give to a community admin: a member the person who runs Helderberg Social has asked to help vet new joiners.

Who sees your details, and how often: the community admin who vets you types in your number and sees your name, surname, home address, mobile number and email address once only. That one look is recorded, and from then on nobody can open your details again from a community admin account. They accept or decline you, or leave it for the person who runs Helderberg Social, who can always see your details. Community admins can look up only a few numbers a day, and every look-up is recorded. Your address is stored encrypted.

The admins' WhatsApp group: when you register, the Helderberg Social number posts your name, your member number and whether you have proven your number in a private WhatsApp group of the community admins, so one of them can pick it up. When you are accepted or declined, it posts your name, member number, the decision, who made it and when. Your address, email and number are not posted there.

The decision: you are told by notification and email. If you are declined and the admin gave a reason, the reason is sent to you. A person makes every decision; you can ask for it to be looked at again.

Your consent: we record when you agreed to this and which version of this notice you agreed to. Without it we cannot vet you, and you cannot ask to join the groups; the rest of the site and the app still work.

How long: for as long as you keep your account. If you are not accepted, your surname and address are deleted 30 days after the decision. Deleting your account deletes them at once: how to delete your account.

Vetting in WhatsApp: you can also be vetted without an account. If you ask to join through the community's waiting group (the Secure Lobby), an admin messages you privately and asks for your name, surname, where you live and why you want to join. Your answers stay in that WhatsApp chat with the admin, and the admins note in their private WhatsApp group your name and the date you were let in. Nothing from that chat goes into our site's records. A decision about you is always made by a person.

Open groups: a few of the community's groups are open to anyone with their invite link, and nobody is vetted on the way in. Being in an open group does not admit anyone to a vetted one.

Asking to join a WhatsApp group

When you ask in the app to join one of the community's WhatsApp groups, the person who runs Helderberg Social sees your name, your mobile number, whether you have proven it is yours, when you joined, the groups you asked for and the note you wrote. We send these to them as a WhatsApp message from the Helderberg Social number, and they answer yes or no. If they write a reason for a no, it stays with them. Your request is kept for a year after it is answered, and deleted with your account.

When you ask to join a group in WhatsApp itself, the Helderberg Social number, as an admin of the group, sees the request. It notes the group, the number or name WhatsApp shows, and whether that number belongs to a vetted member. Where this is switched on, a request from a vetted member is approved, and anyone else is sent one message with the link to register. Nobody is refused or removed this way. These notes are deleted 90 days after the request was last seen.

The community's WhatsApp groups

The Helderberg Social number is a member, and usually an admin, of the community's WhatsApp groups. Its WhatsApp account runs on our server, and our software reads the new messages in the groups it is in. Remember that every member of a group can see what you post there, and your number (community rules).

It reads them for three things only:

Questions to it. A message that asks the Helderberg Social number something is answered from the site's listings.
Events. In groups set up for it, a poster or a message that names a date can be turned into an event in our review queue. A WhatsApp event card (made with WhatsApp's own Event feature) is read in any group. What is kept is the event text, the group's name and the sender's number, as the "submitted by" note of the event, which is erased 90 days after the event is decided, like any other submission. Pictures are read by our own software on our own server and not kept.
Scams and spam. New messages are compared with known scam and spam patterns, such as fake investment offers, phishing links and repeated advertising. What happens depends on how each group is set: it may only note the message for an admin, or delete such a message, or also remove a sender who posts a scam, or who breaks the group's rules for the third time in a week (Decisions made automatically). For a message it flags, it keeps the group, the sender's number, the message's id, the first 200 characters of the message, why it was flagged and what was done, for one year. To spot the same message being posted over and over, it keeps a fingerprint of each message's text, with the sender and group, for 48 hours.

Apart from that, the messages are not stored, not read by a person through our software, and not used for anything else. The admins of each group can of course read it, as any member can.

Messaging the Helderberg Social number

If you message the Helderberg Social number directly, our software reads the message to answer it. A question is answered from the site's listings. If it is a poster or an event, it is put in our review queue like a submission, with your number as the "submitted by" note, erased 90 days after it is decided. To word an answer, the question may be passed to a language model that runs on a private server in South Africa; it is never sent to an outside AI service, and it is not kept there.

Events gathered from public posts

To make the events list useful, we gather events from places where organisers publish them: event and venue websites, public Facebook groups and pages about the Helderberg that the person who runs Helderberg Social belongs to, and Facebook posts tagged #helderbergsocial. Our software reads the post's text and pictures to find an event. What is kept is the event (its name, date, place and description, which may quote the post), a link to the post and the group it was in. We do not keep who posted it, except that for a post tagged #helderbergsocial the name Facebook shows is noted as its "submitted by" note and erased 90 days after the event is decided. A person checks every event before it is published.

If a post of yours was used and you want it taken down, or want your group or page left out, email us and we will do it.

Get-togethers, contacts and your calendar

What they are: in the app, a member picks an event and invites friends to go with them. Everybody in a get-together sees the others' names and whether they are coming, and never anybody's number. Anyone with its link sees the event, the organiser's first name and how many are going.

Your contacts: only if you tap Look in my contacts and allow it. The phone numbers in your contacts are sent to our server once, compared with the members who switched on Let people who have my number find me and have proven their number, and then dropped. They are not stored or logged. The names in your contacts never leave your phone. Nobody can find you this way unless you switch that on.

Proving your number: you send a one-time code from your own WhatsApp to the Helderberg Social number. We record that the number on your account is proven, and nothing else from the message.

Your calendar: only if you allow it, get-togethers you are going to are written into your phone's calendar. That happens on the phone; we do not read your calendar.

How long: a get-together and its list of people are deleted a year after it was made, or when the organiser deletes their account. Leaving one removes you from it straight away.

The app

South Africa only: the app's server only answers connections from South Africa. To tell, it looks up the country of the address your phone connects from in a list of South African address ranges kept on our server; the address is not stored for this. The list is IP Geolocation by DB-IP, used under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence.

Which version you have: when the app opens it asks our server whether there is an update, and says which version it is and where it came from. We count each phone once a day under a code that changes every day, so the count cannot be traced back to you.

What you do in the app: the app keeps the same kind of list as Pages you have opened, so we can see where people get stuck: which screen you open (its name, and the event or venue it shows), the label of a button you press, that the app was opened, put away or opened from a notification or a link, and, for a link out of the app, only the website's name. Our server also notes each request the app makes: which part of the service, whether it worked, how long it took, and the app version. It is filed under a random number the app made for itself, stored only hashed, and, while you are signed in, under your account. It is never what you type, a message, a password, a search, a phone number or where you are. It is erased after 90 days, and goes with your account. Switching off Pages you have opened also erases and stops the app's part.

Notifications: if you allow notifications, the app registers a notification token, kept with your account and the towns and interests you chose. A notification's text (for example "Anna is coming", or that your event was published) passes through Expo's notification service and Google's or Apple's, to reach your phone (Who else sees it). The token is deleted when the phone stops accepting notifications, or with your account.

Keeping the site safe

Rate limits: when you use a form we record a short code made from your connection address, with the time, so we can limit abuse. The code is not encryption: somebody with a list of every address could work it back, so we treat it as personal information and keep it only a few weeks. The mail we send to an address is counted for the same reason, under a code made from the address, for 30 days.

The admin record: what the people who run the site do in its admin console, and attempts to break its protections, are recorded with the time and that short code, for one year. For sign-ins the full connection address is kept as well, for 30 days.

Blocks: someone who has abused the site or a member can be blocked by email address, phone number, connection address, browser or name. A block is decided by a person. It is stored as a hash of the value, with a masked label (such as "c***@domain" or "First L.") so the admins can recognise it, and is kept until it is lifted. If a blocked browser or address tries again, the attempt is counted and the person who runs the site is told.

Decisions made automatically

Two things can happen to you without a person deciding first, and you have the right not to be subject to them without a person looking at it (POPIA section 71):

Scam and spam checks in some WhatsApp groups may delete your message, or remove you from the group (The community's WhatsApp groups). The check uses fixed patterns, not a profile of you. An admin is told every time, admins and trusted members are never acted on, and an admin can undo it.
A join request in WhatsApp from a vetted member may be approved automatically. Nobody is refused automatically.

If either affected you, email us and a person will look at it and put it right.

Who else sees it, and where

We never sell your information or share it for anyone else's marketing. Inside Helderberg Social, the person who runs it can see everything held; community admins see only what Vetting describes; the admins of a WhatsApp group see what any member of it sees. Outside it, these services handle some of it for us, each only for its own part:

Service	What it handles	Where
Our own server	Everything held, the WhatsApp account of the Helderberg Social number, reading posters, and sending email directly to your mail provider	South Africa
A private server we use for language models	Questions to the WhatsApp number and event text, not kept	South Africa
WhatsApp (Meta)	Messages to and from the Helderberg Social number, and the groups	Outside South Africa
Expo, and Google or Apple	Notification tokens and the text of notifications	Outside South Africa (United States)
Google Play	Installing and updating the app, under your Google account	Outside South Africa
Google Fonts, cdnjs (Cloudflare), OpenStreetMap	Your connection address, when your browser loads fonts, the map library and map tiles	Outside South Africa
Facebook (Meta)	A source of public posts we read (above); we send it nothing about you	Outside South Africa

Where your information goes outside South Africa, it goes only to deliver the service you chose (POPIA section 72), to services bound by their own published privacy terms. We will also disclose information where the law requires it, such as a court order or a request from the police that we are obliged to meet, or where someone's life or safety is at risk.

How it is kept safe, and backups

The data is held on a server in South Africa that is not open to the public; the database is not reachable from the internet, only through the site and app. Connections to the site and app are encrypted. Passwords are kept only scrambled, home addresses are kept encrypted, and the admin console needs a second sign-in step. A copy of the database is made every night and before every update, kept on the same server's protected storage, and deleted after 30 days. So something you deleted can stay in a backup for up to 30 days, after which it is gone. A backup is only used to recover from a failure, and anything deleted since is deleted again.

If we have reason to believe that your personal information has been accessed or taken by someone without authority, we will tell the Information Regulator and you, as soon as reasonably possible, as section 22 of POPIA requires.

Children

Helderberg Social is for adults. You must be 18 or older to create an account or join the groups, and the sign-up does not accept a younger age. We do not knowingly collect personal information about children. If you believe a child has given us their details, tell us and we will delete them. Do not post a child's details or photo without their parent's permission (community rules).

Your rights

Under POPIA you have the right to:

ask whether we hold information about you, and for a copy of it (section 23);
have it corrected, or deleted if we are not entitled to keep it (section 24);
object to our using it on the basis of legitimate interest, such as the safety records, the group checks or a public post we gathered (section 11(3));
refuse or withdraw consent at any time (this does not undo what was done before);
not receive direct marketing you did not ask for (section 69); we send none;
not be subject to a decision made only by a machine (section 71; above);
complain to the Information Regulator.

Do it yourself: delete your account at any time, without asking anyone: how to delete your account. Correct your details under Your details. Read, switch off and erase Pages you have opened under Your account. Unsubscribe with the link in any email or the button in any WhatsApp update.

Ask us: for anything else, email cornekruger1@gmail.com. We may need to check that the request comes from you. We answer within 30 days and charge nothing for a request about your own information.

Complain: if you are not satisfied, you can complain to the Information Regulator of South Africa: inforegulator.org.za.

Changes to this notice

When we change how we handle personal information, we update this notice first, change its version date, and announce a change that matters on the site. If a change needs your consent, we ask for it again. Earlier versions are listed on the Legal page.

Last updated 2 November 2026.