Privacy Policy

Who we are

Isihlangu Financial Services is a financial services business based in Johannesburg, South Africa, serving clients nationwide. We are a juristic representative of Discovery Life Limited, and we advise on Discovery's range of products.

For the purposes of POPIA, Isihlangu Financial Services is the responsible party for the personal information described in this policy. That means we decide what is collected and why, and we are accountable for how it is handled.

Our Information Officer is Avi Kay, who can be reached using the contact details at the end of this policy.

What we collect

Information you give us

When you complete the enquiry form on this website, we ask for:

• Your full name
• Your email address
• Your phone number
• The service you are interested in, chosen from a list
• How you would prefer we contact you, by email or by phone

If you phone, send a WhatsApp message or email us instead of using the form, we will hold whatever information you choose to share in that message.

Information collected automatically

Like most websites, ours records basic technical information when you visit, such as the type of device and browser you are using, the pages you looked at, roughly where in the world you are, and which website sent you to us. This is used to understand how the site is performing. It does not identify you personally.

What we do not collect

This website does not ask for and does not accept identity numbers, bank or card details, medical information, or any other sensitive personal information. Never send those to us through this website. If we need that kind of information to advise you, we will collect it later through Discovery's own secure processes, with the appropriate consent and protections in place.

Why we collect it, and on what basis

We use the information you give us to respond to your enquiry and, if you want us to, to arrange and provide financial advice. We do not use it for anything else, and we do not keep it once that purpose has been met.

In POPIA terms, we rely on the following grounds:

• Your consent. You choose to send us your details through the form, knowing we will use them to contact you.
• Performance of a contract, or steps towards one. Where you ask us to advise you, we need your details in order to do so.
• Our legitimate interests, and legal obligations. Financial services businesses are required to keep certain records about the advice they give.

We do not sell your information. We do not share it with third parties for their own marketing. We will not add you to a mailing list from the enquiry form alone, and if we ever introduce a newsletter it will be something you opt in to separately.

Who we share it with

Your information is seen by the Isihlangu team members who need it in order to help you. Beyond that, it is shared only in these circumstances:

• Discovery Life Limited and other Discovery companies. Where you ask us to arrange a product or provide advice on one, we share what is necessary with Discovery, who handle it under their own privacy terms.
• Service providers who help us run this website. These businesses process information on our instructions only, and may not use it for their own purposes. They are listed below.
• Where the law requires it, for example a valid request from a regulator or a court.

Service providers, and information leaving South Africa

We use a small number of third-party service providers to run this website and to pass enquiries to us. They process information on our instructions only, may not use it for their own purposes, and are contractually required to keep it secure. We do not publish their names, because identifying the specific systems that handle enquiries would weaken their security.

• A third-party form provider receives your enquiry from this website and delivers it to us.
• A third-party hosting provider serves the pages of this website.
• A third-party analytics provider supplies the website statistics described under Cookies below.
• A third-party advertising provider supplies the advertising measurement described under Cookies below.

Some of these providers are based in the United States, which means your enquiry passes through and is briefly held on servers outside South Africa. POPIA permits this in two ways, and both apply here. First, you consent to it when you send us the form, which we tell you at the point you submit. Second, these providers operate under recognised international data protection standards and are bound by agreements requiring them to protect your information.

Anything held by these providers is temporary. See How long we keep it below.

Cookies and website statistics

A cookie is a small file a website stores on your device, usually to remember something about your visit.

This website uses Google Analytics to understand how many people visit, which pages they read and how they found us. It is used to improve the website, not to identify individuals. Google Analytics sets cookies and records a shortened version of your internet address rather than the full one.

If you would rather not be counted, you can refuse cookies in your browser settings, use your browser's private browsing mode, or install Google's own opt-out add-on. The website works normally either way.

This website also uses the Meta pixel, from the company behind Facebook and Instagram. It tells us whether an advertisement we placed on Facebook or Instagram led to someone visiting this website or sending us an enquiry, and it lets us show our advertisements again to people who have already been here. This is an advertising cookie, and it does allow Meta to recognise your device on other websites that use the same technology.

You can limit this in your Facebook or Instagram account, under Settings and then Ads, and your browser's cookie settings or private browsing mode apply here too. The website works normally either way.

How long we keep it

Your enquiry reaches us through a third-party form provider, and the copy held there is temporary. Once we have spoken to you and it is clear whether or not you are going to become a client, we delete your details from that provider. Either way, your information does not stay with them.

If you become a client, your information moves into the secure systems we and Discovery use for client records. We then keep it for the periods required by South African financial services legislation, which obliges us to retain records of the advice we gave and the products arranged.

If you decide not to go ahead, we delete your details once that is clear. If we are simply unable to reach you, or the conversation goes quiet, we delete your enquiry within three months. We do not hold on to enquiries in case they turn into business later.

We will also remind you of this when we speak to you, so you know what happens to the details you sent us.

You can ask us to delete what we hold about you at any time, sooner than any of the above. Unless the law requires us to keep a particular record, we will remove it. See Your rights below.

How we protect it

The website is served over an encrypted connection, so anything you type into the form is protected in transit. Access to enquiries is limited to the people who need it, and our service providers are chosen partly on the strength of their security.

Once your enquiry reaches us, it is held within the Discovery group's email and IT environment, and is subject to the security controls that apply there.

No website can promise perfect security. If a breach ever occurred that put your information at risk, POPIA requires us to notify both you and the Information Regulator, and we would do so.

Your rights

POPIA gives you real control over your information. You may:

• Ask what we hold about you, and be given a copy.
• Ask us to correct anything that is wrong or out of date.
• Ask us to delete information we no longer have a valid reason to keep.
• Object to how we are using it, or withdraw a consent you previously gave. Withdrawing consent does not undo anything done lawfully beforehand.
• Complain, to us or to the Information Regulator.

To exercise any of these, contact us using the details below. We will respond as quickly as we reasonably can, and we may need to confirm your identity first so that we do not disclose your information to someone else.

If you are not satisfied with how we have handled your request, you may complain to the Information Regulator (South Africa), whose details are at inforegulator.org.za.

Other websites

This website links to pages run by Discovery, and to the Information Regulator. Once you follow a link away from here, this policy no longer applies, and the privacy terms of that website take over. We are not responsible for how other organisations handle your information.

Changes to this policy

If the way we handle information changes, we will update this page and change the date at the top. Where a change materially affects you, we will make that clear rather than relying on you to notice.

Contact us

For anything in this policy, including a request about your own information, contact our Information Officer: