Introduction
- ASI Financial Services and its subsidiaries, hereinafter referred to as the ASI GROUP – a group of authorised Financial Services Providers (‘We’, ‘us’ and ‘our’) cares about the privacy, security and online safety of our customers’ (‘you’ and ‘your’) personal information. We take our responsibility to protect your personal information very seriously. The purpose of this Privacy Statement is to set out how we collect, use, share and otherwise process your personal information, in line with the Protection of Personal Information Act (“POPIA”).
The meaning of processing your personal information
- To help you understand this notice, we include the explanations of the terms ‘personal information’ and ‘process’ as used in POPIA:
- Personal information and special personal information are any information relating to an identifiable living or juristic person. Some examples are: race, gender, marital status, nationality, age, physical or mental health, disability, language, education, identity number, telephone number, email, postal or street address, biometric information and financial, criminal or employment history.
- Process means any operation or activity, whether automated or not, concerning personal information, including: collection, receipt, recording, organisation, collation, storage, updating or modification, retrieval, alteration, consultation, use, dissemination by means of transmission, distribution or making available in any other form, merging, linking, as well as blocking, degradation, erasure or destruction of information. “Processing” will have a similar meaning.
Why we process your personal information
- We must process some of your personal information in order to provide you with our products and services, and also as required by insurance, tax and other legislation. For example: When you buy one of our services or products, we collect your name, contact information and payment information to complete the transaction. Your personal information is also gathered through our website and other channels we use to distribute, communicate and deliver our services. We use your personal information to do the following:
- Comply with compulsory requirements under relevant laws;
- Administering and managing systems, websites and mobile applications;
- For purposes of fraud prevention;
- Assisting in law enforcement, anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing initiatives;
- Complying with information requests by regulators;
- To contract with you;
- To manage our relationship with you;
- Ensure that our records are kept accurate and up to date where you or other data subjects enter our facilities;
- Enabling any entity within the ASI GROUP and any third-party provider or any financial services provider or its representative approved by ASI GROUP to advise you of, or offer to you, any enhanced benefits or new products that become available from time to time which you may become entitled to or qualify for;
- Providing other product providers in ASI GROUP that you currently subscribe to with information necessary for the operation of their products; and
- Providing relevant information, including your personal information, to a contracted third party who requires such information to render a service to you in relation to your policies with ASI GROUP, provided that such contracted third party agrees to keep the information confidential.
When we share your personal information
- To provide our products and services to you, we may share your personal information with other insurers, industry bodies, credit agencies and our service providers.
- These are some examples of when we will share your personal information:
- When required by any regulatory authority, such as the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA).
- When required by legislation or any legal process.
- To protect and defend our rights and property, including our intellectual property.
- When you have given us direct permission to do so.
- We will never sell your personal Information or share it with other parties for their own marketing use, unless you have given us direct permission.
Some information is automatically collected
- When you use any of our digital channels like websites and apps, we receive and store information generated by your activities (usage data gathered by cookies) and other information that are automatically collected from your browser or mobile device. Most of this data is generally not personally identifiable. However, some of this data, either alone or when linked with other information, may allow your identity to be discovered. We treat this combined data as personal information and we protect it accordingly.
- Cookies are small text files that are created when you view a website. They gather usage data which includes information about the sites you visited, the number of times you visit, the date, time and length of your visit, which products or services you viewed and which areas of the site you visited. We may assign you one or more unique identifiers to help keep track of your future visits.
- Other information automatically collected may include your IP address, browser type and version, preferred language, geographic location, wireless or Bluetooth technology on your device, operating system and computer platform.
Information collected through online advertising
- We use service providers to help us deliver our banner advertisements and other online communications. To understand which types of offers, promotions and advertising are most appealing to our customers, these service providers may collect and use some of your personal information. This information is aggregated and cannot be linked to you.
- Data aggregation is any process in which information is gathered and expressed in a summary form using specific variables such as age, profession, income and interests. These service providers show ASI GROUP’s ads on sites on the internet, and they use the information stored in cookies based on your prior visits to ASI GROUP’s website.
How we protect your data
- We take every reasonable precaution to protect your personal information (including information about your activities) from theft, unauthorised access and disruption of services. Our security controls are designed to maintain an appropriate level of data confidentiality, integrity, and availability. We regularly test our website, data centres, systems, and other assets for security vulnerabilities. However, we cannot guarantee the security of any personal information that you willingly disclose on line.
- Please note that we process and collect your personal information when you use our website, contact us electronically or complete a quotation or application form on line. When you use any of our online services, you will be given a user name and password. Always keep this information safe and never disclose it to anyone.
Receiving marketing from us
- We like to keep our customers informed of the latest products and services offered by us and our service providers. When you buy a new product or service from us, we will ask you what your marketing preferences are. If you do not want to receive marketing from us, you can change your preference on our self-service portal (if you have access) or by contacting us on the details on your policy document or on the details below.
- Note that even if you choose not to receive marketing from us, we may still communicate with you regarding things like security updates, product functionality, responses to service requests and for other transactional or administrative purposes.
Accessing, changing or removing your personal information
- You have the right to ask us to update, correct or delete your personal information. Where we cannot delete your personal information, we will take all steps to make it anonymous. You agree that we may keep your personal information until you ask us to delete or destroy it. This is unless the law requires us to keep it.
- We are required to collect and keep personal information in terms of the following laws, amongst others:
- The Companies Act 71 of 2008
- The Electronic Communications and Transactions Act (ECT)
- The Financial Intelligence Centre Act (FICA)
- The Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services Act (FAIS)
- The National Credit Act (NCA); and
- The Consumer Protection Act (CPA).
- If you believe that we have used your personal information contrary to this Privacy Policy, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator, under POPIA, but we encourage you to firstly address your complaints to our internal complaints process to resolve the complaint.
- We are required to collect and keep personal information in terms of the following laws, amongst others:
For our full comprehensive Privacy and POPIA Policy click here