Privacy Policy for Arena Professional Services Group

1.  Who We Are

This is the privacy policy (“Privacy Policy”) for information collected by Arena Professional Services (PTY) LTD and its subsidiaries (together “Arena”), including our specialized divisions such as Arena Stationery Supplies. This policy applies to all of our business platforms and electronic media, including the domains connected to arenaps.co.za and stationeryarena.co.za (the “Sites”).

Operating from Cape Town, South Africa, we respect your privacy and are committed to protecting your personal information. This Privacy Policy explains what information we collect, why we collect it, how we use it, and the choices we offer you to access and update your information.

2.  Information We Collect

We collect information to provide better services to our clients, customers, and business partners. We collect information in the following ways:

2.1. Information You Give Us

  • Business Inquiries & Employment: Information provided when contacting us regarding potential investments, commercial opportunities, or employment (e.g., sending a CV or resumé). This includes your name, email address, telephone number, and work history.

  • Comments & Profiles: When you leave comments on our Sites, we collect the data shown in the comments form, along with your IP address and browser user agent string to assist with spam detection. An anonymized string created from your email address (a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service. Once approved, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

  • Media Uploads: If you upload images to our website, please avoid uploading files with embedded location data (EXIF GPS). Other visitors can download and extract location data from these images.

2.2. Information Collected in the Course of Business

  • Investment & Commercial Activities: We may receive or collect personal information when researching potential investment opportunities or conducting legal and commercial due diligence (e.g., information about management or personnel at a company we are assessing).

2.3. Information We Get From Your Use of Our Sites

  • Device & Log Information: We collect device-specific information (hardware model, operating system, unique identifiers) and log information (how you use the Site, IP address, crash reports, system activity, and referral URLs).

  • Location Information: We may collect and process information about your actual location using technologies like your IP address.

  • Local Storage & Cookies: We collect and store information locally on your device using browser web storage and application data caches.

3.  Cookies & Tracking

We use cookies to enhance your browsing and shopping experience, identify your device, and improve site functionality:

  • Convenience: If you leave a comment, you may opt-in to saving your name, email, and website in cookies for one year so you do not have to re-enter them.

  • Account Access: When visiting our login page, a temporary cookie verifies if your browser accepts cookies. Upon logging in, we save your login information (lasting two days) and screen display choices (lasting one year). Selecting “Remember Me” keeps you logged in for two weeks.

  • Publishing: Editing or publishing an article saves a temporary, non-personal cookie indicating the post ID, which expires after 1 day.

  • Third-Party Embedded Content: Pages on our Sites may include embedded content (e.g., videos, images, articles). This content behaves exactly as if you visited the source website, which may collect data, use cookies, and monitor your interaction.

You may set your browser to block all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being set by us.

4.  How We Use Your Information

We use personal information to manage and operate our business effectively. This includes:

  • Order Fulfillment: Processing and delivering your stationery and educational resource orders.

  • Business Operations: Exploring new investment opportunities, managing our existing portfolio, developing contacts, and recruiting staff.

  • Communication: Keeping a record of your communications to solve issues, and using your email to inform you about upcoming events, promotions, or business changes.

  • Site Improvement: Providing, maintaining, protecting, and improving our Sites and overall user experience.

  • Protection: Protecting the interests, rights, and property of Arena, our employees, and our users (e.g., in the event of a legal claim).

5.  Our Legal Basis for Processing

  • Consent: Where you have explicitly provided it (which can be withdrawn at any time).

  • Contractual Necessity: To fulfill orders or action specific requests.

  • Legitimate Interests: To manage existing investments, conduct due diligence, and explore new opportunities.

  • Legal Obligations: To comply with legislation, such as anti-money laundering or anti-bribery laws.

6.  How We Share Your Data

We value your trust. We do not sell your personal information. Your data is kept strictly within the Arena Group of subsidiary divisions, with the following exceptions:

  • Order Fulfillment: We share required contact and address details with our trusted third-party courier and delivery partners to ensure the successful delivery of physical orders.

  • External Processing: We may provide data to affiliates or trusted businesses to process it for us (e.g., shared servers and computing resources) under strict confidentiality agreements.

  • Legal and Professional Advisors: We share information with advisors for investment transactions or to obtain professional advice.

  • For Legal Reasons: We may share information outside of Arena if reasonably necessary to meet applicable laws, enforce terms of service, address fraud/security issues, or protect against harm to the rights, property, or safety of Arena, our users, or the public.

If Arena is involved in a merger, acquisition, or asset sale, we will use reasonable endeavours to ensure your data continues to be protected under this Privacy Policy.

7.  Data Retention

  • Registered Users: We securely store the personal information provided in your user profile. You can view, edit, or delete your personal information at any time (except your username). Website administrators can also access and manage this information.

  • Comments: Comments and their metadata are retained indefinitely to automatically recognize and approve follow-up comments.

  • General: We retain data only as long as necessary for the purposes outlined, or as legally legally obliged for administrative, legal, accounting, or security purposes.

8.  Transfer of Personal Information

Arena is headquartered in South Africa (RSA). Consequently, information we collect will be transferred to, and stored in, RSA. If data is transferred to other countries where data protection laws may differ, we will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure it is subject to appropriate safeguards and treated securely.

9.  Data Security

We take information security seriously and work hard to protect our Sites from unauthorized access, alteration, disclosure, or destruction:

  • Our websites and eCommerce portals are fully encrypted and secured with active SSL certificates.

  • Visitor comments may be routed through automated spam detection services.

  • We regularly review our information collection, storage, and processing practices, including physical security measures.

  • We restrict access to personal information to Arena employees, contractors, and agents who need to know that information to process it. They are subject to strict contractual confidentiality obligations and may be disciplined or terminated if they fail to meet them.

10.  Your Data Rights

Depending on your jurisdiction (including residents of South Africa under POPIA, California under the CCPA, or the European Economic Area/UK), you have certain legal rights regarding your personal information:

  • Right to Access & Export: Request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.

  • Right to Correct or Delete: Request that we amend or erase your personal data (subject to our legal obligations to retain certain records).

  • Right to Object (Opt-Out): Object to your personal information being used for purposes materially different from those for which it was collected.

We will comply with any requests in accordance with applicable law. Where permitted, we may reject requests that are unreasonably repetitive, require disproportionate technical effort, risk the privacy of others, or are extremely impractical. Where we can provide access and correction, we will do so free of charge unless it requires disproportionate effort.

11.  Changes & Contacting Us

Our Privacy Policy may change from time to time. We will post any Privacy Policy changes on this page and, if deemed necessary, provide a more prominent notice.

If you have any questions, concerns, or comments about this Privacy Policy, or if you wish to exercise your data rights, please contact us at: enquiries@arenaps.co.za