📅 Effective Date: 1 May 2026
🔒 POPIA Compliant
📍 Republic of South Africa
This Privacy Policy is drafted in compliance with the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (POPIA). As a responsible party, Sankofa Hosting is committed to lawful, transparent, and fair processing of your personal information.
1. Who We Are
Sankofa Hosting Africa (Pty) Ltd (trading as SankoHost) ("we", "us", "our") is a web hosting and digital infrastructure business registered in the Republic of South Africa (Reg. No. 2026/378914/07) and operating from Johannesburg, Gauteng. We are the responsible party for personal information collected through our website and services.
Contact: support@sankohost.com | +27 79 993 9814
Address: Design Quarters, Cnr Magwa Crescent & William Nicol Drive, Fourways, Johannesburg
2. Information We Collect
2.1 Information You Provide
- Account registration: Name, email address, phone number, company name, billing address
- Payment information: Billing details processed securely through PayFast (ZAR payments) or PayPal (international USD/EUR/GBP payments). We do not store card numbers or PayPal credentials on our servers.
- Support communications: Content of support tickets and email correspondence
- Domain registrations: WHOIS contact information required by registry operators
2.2 Information Collected Automatically
- IP addresses and browser type (for security and fraud prevention)
- Server access logs (required for hosting service delivery)
- Cookie data for session management and user preferences
3. How We Use Your Information
We process your personal information only for the following lawful purposes:
- Service delivery: Provisioning and managing your hosting account, domain, and related services
- Billing: Processing payments, generating invoices, and managing subscriptions
- Communication: Sending service notices, invoices, support responses, and renewal reminders
- Security: Detecting fraud, abuse, and unauthorised access to our systems
- Legal compliance: Meeting obligations under South African law
We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal information to third parties for marketing purposes.
4. Sharing of Information
We share your information only where necessary:
- Payment processors: PayFast processes ZAR payment transactions under their own privacy policy; PayPal processes international USD, EUR, and GBP payments under PayPal's privacy policy
- Domain registries: WHOIS information is shared with domain registries (e.g. ZACR for .co.za) as required by registry policy
- Hosting infrastructure: Our upstream infrastructure providers (Contabo and Hetzner) may process data as part of server infrastructure in accordance with their respective data processing agreements
- Legal requirements: We may disclose information if required by law, court order, or to protect our rights
5. Data Retention
We retain your personal information for as long as necessary to provide our services and comply with legal obligations:
- Active account data: retained for the duration of your account
- Billing records: retained for 5 years as required by SARS regulations
- Support records: retained for 2 years after account closure
- Server logs: retained for 90 days for security purposes
6. Your Rights Under POPIA
As a data subject under POPIA, you have the right to:
- Access: Request a copy of personal information we hold about you
- Correction: Request correction of inaccurate or incomplete information
- Deletion: Request deletion of your information where we have no lawful basis to retain it
- Objection: Object to processing of your information for direct marketing
- Complaint: Lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator of South Africa
To exercise any of these rights, contact us at support@sankohost.com. We will respond within 30 days.
7. Cookies
Our website uses essential cookies for session management and security. We do not use advertising or tracking cookies. You may disable cookies in your browser settings, though this may affect functionality of the client portal.
8. Security
We implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your personal information, including:
- SSL/TLS encryption for all data in transit
- Encrypted storage of sensitive credentials
- Access controls limiting staff access to personal data
- Regular security monitoring via Imunify360
In the event of a data breach that poses a risk to your rights, we will notify you and the Information Regulator as required by POPIA.
9. Updates to This Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. Material changes will be communicated via email. The current version is always available at sankohost.com/privacy-policy.