Privacy policy

Welcome to the My Only Story privacy policy. We respect your privacy and take the protection of personal data seriously. This policy described the way that we collect, store, use and protect data that can be associated with you or another specific natural or juristic person and can be used to identify you or that person (personal data).

This policy complies with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR); South Africa’s Protection of Personal Information Act (Popia); and the Google Privacy Policy.

AUDIENCE

This policy applies to you if you are:

a visitor to our website; or
a customer who has ordered, registered for or uses the services that we provide.

PERSONAL DATA

Personal data includes:

certain information that we collect automatically when you visit our website;
certain information collected on signing up for services such as email updates (see below);
certain information collected on submission of the website contact form; and
optional information that you provide to us voluntarily;

but excludes:

information that has been made anonymous so that it does not identify a specific person;
permanently de-identified information that does not relate or cannot be traced back to you specifically;
non-personal statistical information collected and compiled by us; and
information that you have provided voluntarily in an open, public environment or forum, including any blog post (because the information has been disclosed in a public forum, it is no longer confidential and does not constitute personal data subject to protection under this policy).

Common examples

Common examples of the types of personal data we may collect and process include your:

identifying information – such as your name, date of birth, or identification number of any kind; or
contact information – such as your phone number or email address.

ACCEPTANCE OF THIS POLICY

Acceptance required

You must accept all the terms of this policy when you use the website or any of our services. If you do not agree with anything in this policy, then you may not use the website or any of our services. You may not use the website or any of our services if you do not accept this policy.

Legal capacity

You may not access our website or order our services if you are younger than 18 years old or do not have legal capacity to conclude legally binding contracts.

Deemed acceptance

By accepting this policy, you are deemed to have read, understood, accepted, and agreed to be bound by all of its terms.

Your obligations

You may only send us your own personal data or the information of another data subject where you have their permission to do so. Our website may give you the option to post information in a way that is publicly accessible and may be collected by others (such as via comments on blog posts). You are responsible for any personal data that you post in this way.

CHANGES

We may change the terms of this policy at any time by updating this web page. We will notify you of any changes by placing a notice in a prominent place on the website, or by sending you an email detailing the changes that we have made and indicating the date that they were last updated. If you do not agree with the changes, then you must stop using the website and our services. If you continue to use the website or our services following notification of a change to the terms, the changed terms will apply to you and you will be deemed to have accepted those updated terms.

COLLECTION OF DATA

On registration

When you sign up for email updates on our website or contact us via the contact form provided on the website, you will provide us with certain personal data.

This personal data may include:

your name and surname; and
your email address.

We will use this personal data to fulfil your account, provide additional services and information to you as we reasonably think appropriate, and for any other purposes set out in this policy.

From browser

We automatically receive and record internet usage information on our server logs from your browser, such as your internet protocol address (IP address), browsing habits, click patterns, version of software installed, system type, screen resolutions, colour capabilities, plug-ins, language settings, cookie preferences, search engine keywords, JavaScript enablement, the content and pages that you access on the website, and the dates and times that you visit the website, paths taken, and time spent on sites and pages within the website (usage information).

Please note that other websites you visited before entering our website might place personal data within your URL during a visit to it, and we have no control over such websites. Accordingly, a subsequent website that collects URL information may log some personal data.

We may place small text files called "cookies" on your device when you visit our website. These files do not contain personal data, but they do contain a personal identifier allowing us to associate your personal data with a certain device. Many websites use cookies and you can find out more about them here.

These files serve a number of useful purposes for you, including:

tailoring our website’s functionality to you personally by letting us remember your preferences, location or device type;
improving how our website performs; and
allowing third parties to provide services to our website.

We use different types of cookies on our website. Some of these cookies are placed by us, while others are placed by our third-party partners, suppliers or advertisers. These cookies may be deleted from your device at different times, such as at the end of your browsing session (when you leave the website) or after a pre-set amount of time, or they may persist on your device until you delete them.

You can see the main types of cookies we use in the following list.

Cookie name: Google Analytics
Cookie type: Analytics
Cookie function: Tracks and reports on website traffic and visitor behaviour.

Cookie name: Social media (various)
Cookie type: Social media
Cookie function: Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms use a cookie to track your behaviour on our website for advertising purposes and to enable some functionality such as sharing articles to social media platforms.

Web beacons

Our website may contain electronic image requests (called a single-pixel GIF or web beacon request) that allow us to count page views and to access cookies. Any electronic image viewed as part of a web page (including an ad banner) can act as a web beacon. Our web beacons do not collect, gather, monitor or share any of your personal data. We merely use them to compile anonymous information about our website.

Optional details

You may also provide additional information to us on a voluntary basis (optional information). This includes content or products that you decide to upload or download from our website or when you enter competitions, take advantage of promotions, respond to surveys, order certain additional goods or services, or otherwise use the optional features and functionality of our website.

Purpose for collection of data

We may use or process any services information, or optional information that you provide to us for the purposes that you indicated when you agreed to provide it to us. Processing includes gathering your personal data, disclosing it, and combining it with other personal data. We generally collect and process your personal data for various purposes, including:

services purposes – such as providing services like email updates;
marketing purposes – such as pursuing lawful related marketing activities, including business intelligence (including website activity and market research);
business purposes – such as internal audit, accounting, business planning, and joint ventures, disposals of business, or other proposed and actual transactions; and
legal purposes – such as handling claims, complying with regulations, or pursuing good governance.

We may use your usage information for the purposes described above and to:

remember your information so that you will not have to re-enter it during your visit or the next time you access the website;
monitor website usage metrics such as total number of visitors and pages accessed; and
track your entries, submissions, and status in any promotions or other activities in connection with your usage of the website.

Consent to collection of data

We will obtain your consent to collect personal data:

in accordance with applicable law;
when you provide us with any registration information or optional information.

USE OF DATA

Our obligations

We may use your personal data to fulfil our obligations to you. This could include delivering email updates to you or responding to messages posted via the contact form provided on the website.

Messages and updates

We may send administrative messages and email updates to you about the website. We may wish to provide you with information about new goods or services in which we think you may be interested. This means that in some cases, we may also send you primarily promotional messages. We will not send you promotional messages unless you have chosen to opt in to receive them. You can choose to opt out of receiving promotional messages.

DISCLOSURE OF DATA

Sharing

We may share your personal data with:

social media platforms when you use tools or functionality on our website provided by those platforms (such as "recommend" or "share" buttons).

Regulators

We may disclose your personal data as required by law or governmental audit.

Law enforcement

We may disclose personal data if required:

by a subpoena or court order;
to comply with any law;
to protect the safety of any individual or the general public; and
to prevent violation of our customer relationship terms.

No selling

We will not sell personal data. No personal data will be disclosed to anyone except as provided in this privacy policy.

No linked websites

We do not share personal data with any websites linked to on our site, unless they are a party with whom we are allowed to share personal data, as indicated in this policy. Please check these websites’ own privacy policies before sharing your personal data with them.

Marketing purposes

We may disclose aggregate statistics (information about the customer population in general terms) about the personal data to advertisers or business partners.

Employees

We may need to disclose personal data to our employees that require the personal data to do their jobs. Any of our employees or personnel that handle your personal data will have signed non-disclosure and confidentiality agreements.

Change of ownership

If we undergo a change in ownership, or a merger with, acquisition by, or sale of assets to, another entity, we may assign our rights to the personal data we process to a successor, purchaser or separate entity. We will disclose the transfer on the website. If you are concerned about your personal data migrating to a new owner, you may request us to delete your personal data.

Security

We take the security of personal data very seriously and always do our best to comply with applicable data protection laws. Our hosting company will host our website in a secure server environment that uses a firewall and other advanced security measures to prevent interference or access from outside intruders.

We authorise access to personal data only for those employees who require it to fulfil their job responsibilities. We implement disaster recover procedures where appropriate.

Accurate and up to date

We will try to keep the personal data we collect as accurate, complete and up to date as is necessary for the purposes defined in this policy. You are able to review or update any personal data that we hold on you by emailing us.

Please note that in order to better protect you and safeguard your personal data, we take steps to verify your identity when making any corrections to your personal data. Throughout your interaction with us you retain the right to rectify personal data that is incorrect or inaccurate. This does not apply if we process your personal data in our capacity as an operator or processor on behalf of a responsible party or data controller.

RETENTION OF DATA

We will only retain your personal data for as long as it is necessary to fulfil the purposes explicitly set out in this policy, unless:

retention of the record is required or authorised by law; or
you have consented to the retention of the record.

Without limiting the above, we may store the following types of personal data for the following durations:

email subscription data – the lifetime of your account;
comments on blog posts – the lifetime of the blog post;
customer communications via the contact form provided on the website – as required to service any requests made.

During the period of retention, we will continue to abide by our non-disclosure obligations and will not share or sell your personal data.

We may retain your personal data in physical or electronic records at our discretion.

Transfer to another country

We may transmit or transfer personal data outside the country in which it was collected to a foreign country and process it in that country. Personal data may be stored on servers located outside the country in which it was collected in a foreign country whose laws protecting personal data may not be as stringent as the laws in the country in which it was collected. You consent to us processing your personal data in a foreign country whose laws regarding processing of personal data may be less stringent.

Updating or removing

You may choose to correct or update the personal data you have submitted to us by emailing us (please also see additional information under Enquiries).

You are entitled to a right to be forgotten. We will delete any personal data that you don’t want us to have. If you do this, we will remove your personal data from our system, but we may still retain certain personal data as required or allowed by law, including:

where we can show legitimate grounds for processing your personal data that override your request; or
where we process your personal data in order to establish, exercise or defend legal claims.

You understand that if we delete your data from our system, we may be unable to continue providing some or all of our services to you.

If you are a data subject of one of our customers (who is the data controller), then you must submit your request to the relevant data controller who will then delete your personal data.

Restriction of processing

You may request that we restrict the use of your personal data. When we restrict your personal data we still have the right to store it but not use it. You can ask that we do this verbally or in writing (which writing may be in an electronic form) via the forums described in this policy. We will respond to the request within 30 days.

Data portability

If you should wish to transfer your data from us to another data controller, we will facilitate this transfer. We will pass on all of our personal data to the data controller.

If you are a data subject of one of our customers (who is the data controller), then you must submit your request for your personal data to the relevant data controller, who will then export your personal data as a Microsoft Excel or CSV file.

Data breaches

We will notify our customers of any confirmed data breaches that has occurred. It is our customers’ responsibility to notify relevant supervisory authorities and any affected data subjects of the data breach.

Limitation

We are not responsible for, give no warranties, nor make any representations in respect of the privacy policies or practices of any linked or third-party websites.

ENQUIRIES

If you want to update or remove your personal data, restrict how we process it, or opt in or out of receiving email updates or other promotional content, please email alison@fairlyfamous.com.

If you have any questions or concerns arising from this privacy policy or the way in which we handle personal data, please contact us on the email address provided above.

Complaints

If you have any complaints about the way we handle your personal data, please contact our data protection officer as described above, so that we can resolve it. You may choose, however, to approach a supervisory authority instead, including:

the data protection authority in your jurisdiction, where you are covered by the EU GDPR; or
the South African Information Regulator.

You can find out who your data protection authority, commissioner or regulator is by visiting this website.