AFRICANPULSE PRIVACY POLICY
AfricanPulse is managed by IQBusiness Insights (Pty) Ltd, previously known as Nudge Now (Pty) Ltd, hereafter referred to as “IQB Insights” - a South African-based online Market Research and insights company. IQB Insights uses surveys to provide our clients with insights into consumer behaviour. For more about what we do, please visit our website at: www.nudge.co.za and www.iqbusiness.net.
At IQB Insights, respecting privacy is an important part of our commitment to clients, community members, and the general public. This privacy policy, (the “Policy”) describes our practices specific to the collection and use of your personal information when you participate in AfricanPulse located at www.african-pulse.com, (collectively known as the “Site”). This Policy is intended to be read in conjunction with our website Privacy Policy which can be found at: www.nudge.co.za and www.iqbusiness.net, which outlines additional details about our data collection and processing practices.
IQB Insights has appointed a Privacy Officer who is responsible for monitoring and enforcing compliance with this Policy. Should you have any questions regarding this Policy, you can contact our Privacy Officer by email at privacyofficer@iqbusiness.net. You may also call us at any of our numbers listed at www.nudge.co.za.
IQB Insights owns and operates AfricanPulse (‘Community’). When you provide any information to the AfricanPulse Community, you are submitting this data directly to us.
Data Collection & Use
AfricanPulse is focused on providing you with the opportunity to voice your opinions on a variety of topics and issues. Your opinion is important to us and is the primary focus of the data we collect. In order to facilitate your membership and ensure that we are including you in relevant studies, we create a profile of you. To do this, we collect personal information from you such as your name, email address, gender, age, race, and other household information through a profiling questionnaire which is completed as a prerequisite to joining the community. On occasion, we may automatically add information from your survey responses to your profile. We may also request information about others residing in your household, including children. All information is viewable by us, and may be shared with third parties as outlined below.
When completing surveys, we ask that you do not provide personal information unless it is explicitly requested. For example, do not provide information about a health condition in a field that is requesting information about your favourite food. When submitting information about others, we require that you obtain their consent before providing their information to us.
Any time you participate as a respondent in one of our surveys, you can be assured that your individual responses will be kept confidential and will only be shared as outlined in this Policy. You are free to choose whether or not to participate in a survey, free to choose not to answer any specific questions and free to discontinue participation and your membership of AfricanPulse at any time.
When you use this site, some information about your visit is automatically recorded such as the pages you have viewed, your IP address and the date and time of your visit. We also collect information using cookies - please refer to our Cookie policy for more information. All of the information that we collect may be combined to assist us in improving our products, services, and our communications with you. Note that if you share any of your activity on third-party social media platforms, you will then be subject to the privacy and cookie policies that govern those respective platforms.
Sharing of Information / Third Parties
Generally, we do not provide personal information to third parties. From time to time however, we may share your personal information with others including our clients and other third parties under the following circumstances:
- The third party provides a service to us, such as a hosting provider, and is contractually bound to protect the confidentiality of your personal information;
- To administer lucky draws and other promotions;
- You have consented to participate directly in a study conducted by or on behalf of our client;
- You post the information while participating in an open discussion forum; or
- When we believe it necessary to comply with the law, to protect the rights or safety of our website, other users, or third parties.
In some cases, we may be required to transfer your personal information to other countries (including the U.K., Europe, the U.S., Canada, etc) where other companies or third parties operate and process your personal information. We only share your personal information with service providers with whom we have entered into a written agreement with and that party has agreed to comply with our privacy guidelines as described in this Policy. By providing any personal information to us, you fully understand and clearly consent to such use and transfers as set out in this Policy.
We will never use your personal information for reasons that we have not disclosed to you, including selling it to marketers or advertisers for their own purposes.
We reserve the right to use and share all non-personal information with others without limitation.
Public Areas of the Site and Social Media
Information that you post on or through the public areas of the site (e.g. chat rooms, bulletin boards, and discussion groups) and on any of our Social Media pages (e.g. on our Facebook and Twitter pages) is publicly available information and is generally accessible to and may be collected and used by others. Please use caution and do not disclose any personal information, as we do not have any control on how other users may subsequently use your information and will not be held liable.
Communications from the Site
In order to participate in the AfricanPulse Community, you must opt-in to receive emails from us. The first email you receive from us will be sent to confirm your membership subscription and verify that the email address you have provided is valid. Subsequent emails will be sent to invite you to participate in surveys, to respond to your inquiries and support requests, to send you newsletters and other informative content, and to administer lucky draws.
Cookies and Related Technologies
When you visit the Site, participate in a survey, access the member hub, or interact with a survey invite email or SMS, we use certain technologies to retain your preferences and provide other Site functionality. These technologies include cookies, web beacons, and digital fingerprints. To learn more about these technologies and your options, please visit our Terms, Conditions & Cookie Policy.
Opting-Out
At any time, you may choose to opt-out of being a member of the AfricanPulse Community by clicking the Unsubscribe link at the bottom of our emails, by using the Unsubscribe option in the Profile area of the member hub, or by contacting us directly at support@african-pulse.com. Please note that when you unsubscribe, we will not only cease sending you emails, we will also deactivate your membership. Any information you have submitted to us, including survey invites and personal information will continue to be retained in accordance with our data retention practices outlined below.
Opting-out of the AfricanPulse Community does not unsubscribe you from other Communities you have chosen to join. If you have opted-in to participate in another survey or have otherwise become a participant in one of our client's communities, and wish to be removed, you will need to contact them directly on the support e-mail address provided to unsubscribe.
At your request, and where required by law, we will confirm, share, or update the personal information we hold about you. However, to protect your privacy we may first have to verify your identity.
Children’s Privacy
The AfricanPulse Community is not intended for children under the age of 18 years old. From time to time however, we may conduct surveys that are targeted at children. When we conduct such surveys, we will request express permission from a parent, legal guardian or other person legally responsible for the child before inviting the child to participate. We do not share the personal information of children with third parties, and participation can be revoked by the parent or guardian at any time by using the options listed above.
Data Retention
We will retain your personal information and survey responses for as long as it remains necessary or relevant for the purposes we have identified or as permitted/required by law. For example, we may need to retain the personal information of an unsubscribed member for the purposes of maintaining the integrity of the study, or to honour that member’s opt-out preference (by retaining the email address). If you would like to explicitly request the removal of your personal information, please contact us using the contact information listed above. Non-personal information is not subject to any retention limitations and may be retained indefinitely.
Changes to This Policy
nudge encourages you to periodically review this Policy to stay informed of how we manage your personal information. If any changes are made to this Policy, nudge will revise the "Updated" date that is indicated on the Policy.
Updated: August 2021