VDL SYSTEMS — PRIVACY POLICY
Website privacy notice in terms of the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (POPIA)
Effective date: 2026-09-14
Summary: This notice explains what personal information vdlsystems.co.za collects, why, and what you can do about it. It covers this website; information shared during client engagements is governed by VDL Systems' full POPIA policy, a copy of which is available on request from the Information Officer (contact below).
1. Who we are
VDL Systems (Van der Linde Holdings (Pty) Ltd, trading as VDL Systems) is a software company based in Bloemfontein, South Africa. Our Information Officer is Abraham van der Linde.
2. What this website collects
| Where | What | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Contact form | Your name, email address, and message | To reply to your enquiry and, if we work together, to manage the engagement |
| Analytics | Anonymised usage data (pages viewed, session length, approximate region) via Google Analytics, with IP anonymisation | To understand how the site is used and improve it |
| Server logs | Technical request data | Security and site availability |
We do not collect special personal information (health, biometric, or similar data), and we do not run advertising trackers on this site.
3. What we do with it
- We use contact-form details only to respond to you and, where an engagement follows, to deliver and administer our services.
- We do not sell, rent, or share your personal information with third parties for their marketing.
- The only parties who process data on our behalf are essential service providers: our hosting, email, DNS/security, and analytics providers. Each processes only what is needed to deliver its service.
4. How long we keep it
- Contact-form enquiries: up to 12 months, or for the duration of any resulting engagement plus the retention required by law.
- Analytics data: up to 26 months (Google Analytics default).
5. Cookies
This site uses essential cookies for basic functionality and Google Analytics cookies to understand aggregate usage. You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings; the site will still work, though anonymous usage measurement will stop.
6. Where data lives
This website and the systems behind it are hosted in South Africa. Anonymous analytics data is processed by Google in the United States under standard contractual safeguards.
7. Your rights under POPIA
You may ask us to:
- Confirm and access the personal information we hold about you;
- Correct or delete it;
- Object to our processing of it.
To exercise any of these rights, email the Information Officer at abraham@vdlsystems.co.za. We respond within 30 days, as POPIA requires.
If you are not satisfied with our response, you may complain to the Information Regulator of South Africa (enquiries@inforegulator.org.za, www.inforegulator.org.za).
8. How we protect information
Access to personal information is restricted to authorised people on a need-to-know basis, protected by access controls, encrypted connections, audit logging, and written agreements with the service providers listed above.
9. Changes to this notice
We may update this notice from time to time; the effective date above shows the current version.