Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy was last updated on 22 November 2022.

1. Introduction

Living Waters Accommodation ("us", "we", or "our") operates the www.livingwatersaccommodation.co.za website (the "Site").

This page informs you of our policies regarding the collection, use and disclosure of Personal Information when you use our Site.

We will not use or share your information with anyone except as described in this Privacy Policy.

We use your Personal Information for providing and improving our Site. By using our Site, you agree to the collection and use of information in accordance with this policy. Unless otherwise defined in this Privacy Policy, terms used in this Privacy Policy have the same meanings as in our Terms and Conditions, accessible at https://www.livingwatersaccommodation.co.za/website-terms-conditions-of-use/

2. What Personal Data We Collect

We only collect information about you if we have a reason to do so–for example, to provide our services, to communicate with you, or to give you the best experience on our Site. We collect information in three ways: 1) if and when you provide information to us, 2) automatically through operating our Site, and 3) from outside sources. Let’s go over the information that we collect.

Information You Provide to Us

It’s probably no surprise that we collect information that you provide to us. The amount and type of information depend on the context and how we use the information. Here are some examples:

Basic User Account Information: We ask for basic information from you in order to set up your user account on our Site. For example, we require individuals who sign up for a user account on our Site to provide a username and email address–and that’s it. You may provide us with more information–like your name–but we don’t require that information to create a user account.
Public Profile Information: If you have a user account on our Site, we collect the information that you provide for your public profile. For example, if you have a user account, your username is part of that public profile, along with any other information you put into your public profile, such as a photo or an “About Me” description. Your public profile information is just that–public–so please keep that in mind when deciding what information you would like to include.
Transaction and Billing Information: The Living Waters Accommodation Site does not process payment transactions, nor collect billing information.
Content Information: Depending on the services you use on our Site, you may also provide us with information about you in draft and published content (such as your business contact details or photos you may upload). For example, if you write a blog post that includes biographic information about you, or submit a business listing, we will have that information, and so will anyone with access to the Internet if you choose to publish the post publicly. This might be obvious to you…but it’s not to everyone!
Communications with Us (Hi There!): You may also provide us with information (like your name, email address, and phone number) when you respond to polls and surveys, or when you communicate with us using our online contact form.

Information We Collect Automatically

We also collect some information automatically:

Log Information: Like most online service providers, we collect information that web browsers, mobile devices, and servers typically make available, such as the browser type, IP address, unique device identifiers, language preference, referring site, the date and time of access, operating system, and mobile network information. We collect log information when you use our Site.
Usage Information: We collect information about your usage of our Site. For example, we collect information about the actions that site administrators and users perform on our Site–in other words, who did what, when and to what thing on the site (e.g., [username] deleted “[title of post]” at [time/date]). We also collect information about what happens when you use our Site (e.g., page views, searches and information about your device (e.g., screen size, name of cellular network, and mobile device manufacturer). We use this information to, for example, provide our Site services to you, as well as get insights on how people use the services on our Site, so we can make our services better.
Location Information: We may determine the approximate location of your device from your IP address. We collect and use this information to, for example, calculate how many people visit our Site from certain geographic regions. We may also collect information about your precise location via our mobile apps (when, for example, you post a photograph with location information) if you allow us to do so through your mobile device operating system’s permissions.
Stored Information: We may access information stored on your mobile device via our Site. We access this stored information through your device operating system’s permissions. For example, if you give us permission to access the photographs on your mobile device’s camera roll, our Site may access the photos stored on your device when you upload a photograph.
Information from Cookies & Other Technologies: A “cookie” is a string of information that a website stores on a visitor’s device, and that the visitor’s browser provides to the Site each time the visitor returns. A “flash cookie”, otherwise known as locally shared objects (LSOs), is a piece of data that websites which use Adobe Flash may store on a user's computer. A “web beacon” (also called transparent GIFs, web bugs, pixels, or action tags) is an often-transparent graphic image placed on a website or in an email that is used to monitor the activity of users. Living Waters Accommodation may use cookies, web beacons, flash cookies, and other tracking technologies to help us identify and track visitors, usage, and access preferences for our Services, as well as track and understand email campaign effectiveness and to deliver targeted ads. For more information about our use of cookies and other technologies for tracking, including how you can control the use of cookies, please see our Cookie Policy.

Information We Collect from Other Sources

We may also get information about you from other sources. For example, if you register your user account on our Site through a social media platform (like Facebook or Twitter) or if you comment on our Site using Facebook, we will receive information from that service (such as your username, email address and basic profile information) via the authorization procedures used by that service. The information we receive depends on which services you use and any options that are available.

3. How and Why We Use Information

We use information about you as mentioned above and for the purposes listed below:

To provide and maintain our Site services – for example, to set up and maintain your account or charge you for any of our paid services;
To further develop and improve our Site – for example by adding new features that we think our users will enjoy or will help them to create and manage their accounts and content more efficiently;
To monitor and analyse trends and better understand how users interact with our Site, which helps us improve our Site and make them easier to use;
To measure, gauge, and improve the effectiveness of our advertising, and better understand user retention and attrition – for example, we may analyse how many individuals purchased a plan after receiving a marketing message or the features used by those who continue to use our Site after a certain length of time;
To monitor and prevent any problems with our Site, protect the security of our Services, detect and prevent fraudulent transactions and other illegal activities, fight spam, and protect the rights and property of Living Waters Accommodation and others, which may result in us declining a transaction or the use of our Site;
To communicate with you, for example through an email, about offers and promotions offered by Living Waters Accommodation and others we think will be of interest to you, solicit your feedback, or keep you up to date on Living Waters Accommodation and our services; and
To personalize your experience using our Site, provide content recommendations, target our marketing messages to groups of our users (for example, those who have a particular plan with us or have been our user for a certain length of time), and serve relevant advertisements.

4. How We Share Information

We do not sell our users’ private personal information. We share information about you in the limited circumstances spelled out below and with appropriate safeguards on your privacy:

Subsidiaries, Employees, and Independent Contractors: We may disclose information about you to our subsidiaries, our employees, and individuals who are our independent contractors that need to know the information in order to help us provide our Services or to process the information on our behalf. We require our subsidiaries, employees, and independent contractors to follow this Privacy Policy for personal information that we share with them.
Third Party Vendors: We may share information about you with third-party vendors who need to know information about you in order to provide their services to us, or to provide their services to you. This group includes vendors that help us provide our Site services to you (like payment providers that process your credit and debit card information, postal and email delivery services that help us stay in touch with you, customer chat and email support services that help us communicate with you, registrars, registries, and data escrow services that allow us to provide domain registration services, and your hosting provider if your site is not hosted by Living Waters Accommodation), those that assist us with our marketing efforts (e.g. by providing tools for identifying a specific marketing target group or improving our marketing campaigns), those that help us understand and enhance our Site Services (like analytics providers). Additionally, visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.
Law Enforcement: We may disclose information about you in response to a subpoena, court order, or other governmental request.
To Protect Rights, Property, and Others: We may disclose information about you when we believe in good faith that disclosure is reasonably necessary to protect the property or rights of Living Waters Accommodation, third parties, or the public at large. For example, if we have a good faith belief that there is an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury, we may disclose information related to the emergency without delay.
Business Transfers: In connection with any merger, sale of company assets, or acquisition of all or a portion of our business by another company, or in the unlikely event that Living Waters Accommodation goes out of business or enters bankruptcy, user information would likely be one of the assets that is transferred or acquired by a third party. If any of these events were to happen, this Privacy Policy would continue to apply to your information and the party receiving your information may continue to use your information, but only consistent with this Privacy Policy.
With Your Consent: We may share and disclose information with your consent or at your direction. For example, we may share your information with third parties with which you authorise us to do so, such as the social media services that you use to connect to your user account or use to comment on our Site.
Aggregated or De-Identified Information: We may share information that has been aggregated or reasonably de-identified, so that the information could not reasonably be used to identify you. For instance, we may publish aggregate statistics about the use of our Services and we may share a hashed version of your email address to facilitate customized ad campaigns on other platforms.
Published Support Requests: If you send us a request (for example, via a support email or one of our feedback mechanisms), we reserve the right to publish that request in order to help us clarify or respond to your request or to help us support other users.
Information Shared Publicly: Information that you choose to make public is disclosed publicly. That means, of course, that information like your public profile, posts and other content and comments that you make public on our Site, are all available to others. For example, the photo that you upload to your public profile, or a default image if you haven’t uploaded one, is your Globally Recognized Avatar, or Gravatar – get it? :). Public information may also be indexed by search engines or used by third parties. Please keep all of this in mind when deciding what you would like to share.

5. How Long We Retain Your Data

We generally discard information about you when we no longer need the information for the purposes for which we collect and use it – which are described in the section above on How and Why We Use Information – and we are not legally required to continue to keep it. For example, we keep the web server logs that record information about a visitor to our Site, such as the visitor’s IP address, browser type, and operating system, for approximately 30 days. We retain the logs for this period of time in order to, among other things, analyse traffic to our Site and investigate issues if something goes wrong on our Site.

We retain the personal data you give us as part of your user account on our Site for as long as you have an account with us. If you delete your user account, then your personal data will immediately be deleted and the remaining information made anonymous. We might then use it to help us improve our services.

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.

6. How We Store and Protect Your Data

Living Waters Accommodation takes measures to help protect information about you from unauthorized access, use, alteration, or destruction and disclosure. For example, we use HTTPS while information is being transmitted. We also enforce administrative access controls to limit which of our employees have access to non-public personal information on our Site.

Living Waters Accommodation may contract with a variety of third-party providers from time to time, to provide for our hosting, authentication, storage and telecommunication needs, etc., including without limitation storage of our users personally identifiable information. Living Waters Accommodation shall not be responsible or liable, and hereby disclaims all responsibility and liability, for culpable (including without limitation negligent) acts or omissions by its third-party suppliers.

Since there is no perfect secure method of protecting information during its storage, processing and transfer into electronic form, Living Waters Accommodation does not give the full warranty of its complete safety, despite all efforts made by Living Waters Accommodation. If you believe your user account has been abused, please contact us for assistance. Scroll down to Contact Us to find out how to reach us.

Please include your Site user account information such as first name, last name and e-mail address in the request. We may ask you to provide additional information for identity verification purposes, or to verify that you are in possession of an applicable email account.

7. Choices and How To Opt Out

You have several choices available when it comes to information about you:

Limit the Information that You Provide: If you have an account with us, you can choose not to provide the optional account information, profile information, and transaction and billing information. Please keep in mind that if you do not provide this information, certain features of our Site may not be accessible.
Remove image location data: If you upload images to our Site, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the Site can download and extract any location data from images on the Site.
Limit Access to Information on Your Mobile Device: Your mobile device operating system should provide you with the ability to discontinue our ability to collect stored information or location information via our mobile apps. If you do so, you may not be able to use certain features (like adding a location to a photograph, for example).
Opt-Out of Electronic Communications: You may opt out of receiving promotional messages from us. Just follow the instructions in those messages. If you opt out of promotional messages, we may still send you other messages, like those about your account and legal notices.
Set Your Browser to Reject Cookies: At this time, Living Waters Accommodation does not respond to “do not track” signals across all of our Site. However, you can usually choose to set your browser to remove or reject browser cookies before using Living Waters Accommodation’s Site, with the drawback that certain features of Living Waters Accommodation's Site may not function properly without the aid of cookies.
Close Your Account: While we’d be very sad to see you go, if you no longer want to use our Site, you can close your user account. Please keep in mind that we may continue to retain your information after closing your account, as described in How Long We Keep Information above – for example, when that information is reasonably needed to comply with (or demonstrate our compliance with) legal obligations such as law enforcement requests, or reasonably needed for our legitimate business interests

8. Other Important Information About Your Privacy

Third Party Links - Our Site may contain links to third party websites, services and functions that may use and conform to different privacy rules from those stated here. Living Waters Accommodation is not responsible for the privacy policy of such resources.
Social Media Features - Our Site includes social media features – for example, Facebook comments or social media share widgets. These features are hosted by third parties that may set cookies on your device to enable the feature to function properly and to track your interaction with the feature. Your interactions with these features are governed by the privacy policy of the third party providing feature.
Embedded Content from Third Party Websites - Our Site may use embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from third party websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.

These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

9. Adverts and Analytics Services Provided By Others

Adverts appearing on our Site may be delivered by advertising networks. These ad networks and analytics providers may set tracking technologies (like cookies) to collect information about your use of our Site. These technologies allow these third parties to recognize your device to compile information about you or others who use your device. This information allows us and other companies to, among other things, analyse and track usage, determine the popularity of certain content, and deliver advertisements that may be more targeted to your interests. Please note this Privacy Policy only covers the collection of information by Living Waters Accommodation and does not cover the collection of information by any third party advertisers or analytics providers.

10. reCAPTCHA v3

We have implemented reCAPTCHA v3 on our Site. The use of reCAPTCHA v3 is subject to the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Use. reCAPTCHA may only be used to fight spam and abuse on the site. reCAPTCHA API works by collecting hardware and software information, such as device and application data, and sending this data to Google for analysis. By using the Living Waters Accommodation Website you consent to the collection and sharing of this data with Google.

11. Privacy Policy Changes

Although most changes are likely to be minor, Living Waters Accommodation may change its Privacy Policy from time to time. Living Waters Accommodation encourages visitors to frequently check this page for any changes to its Privacy Policy. If we make changes, we will notify you by revising the change log below, and, in some cases, we may provide additional notice (such as adding a statement to our homepage, or sending you a notification through email). Your further use of the Services after a change to our Privacy Policy will be subject to the updated policy.

12. Which Laws Apply

This Privacy Policy will be governed by and construed and interpreted in accordance with the laws of South Africa. To the extent that a court has jurisdiction over any dispute which may arise out of or in connection with this Privacy Policy, we both submit to the jurisdiction of the South African courts. Living Waters Accommodation shall not be liable for costs incurred by users to obtain professional advice with regard to the legality of this Privacy Policy.

13. How To Access, Update Or Delete Information

Registered Site users can usually access, correct, or delete their personal data using their account settings and tools that we offer. If you aren’t able to access, update or delete our information you can contact us for assistance. Scroll down to Contact Us to find out how to reach us.

14. Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us at info@livingwatersaccommodation.co.za

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