Data privacy & protection policy

Welcome to our data privacy & protection policy

This Privacy and Protection Policy applies to all users of our website, related mobi-sites and software applications, collectively referred to as “our Platforms“, which are used to access and purchase our products and services.

The purpose of this Privacy and Protection Policy is to set out how, why and when Loita Trading Services (Pty) Ltd t/a Loitabusiness.com (“Loita Business”) uses your Personal Information so as to comply with the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (“POPI“).

It is important that you read this Privacy and Protection Policy together with our other terms and conditions, privacy notices or policies we may provide from time to time when we collect or use your Personal Information.

Further, please pay special attention to the clauses in this Privacy and Protection Policy that appear in similar text and style (i.e. bold) which:

• may limit the risk or liability of Loita Business or a third party.
• may create risk or liability for the user.
• may compel the user to indemnify Takealot or a third party.
• serves as an acknowledgement, by the user, of a fact.

We respect your privacy and take the protection of Personal Information very seriously. We strive to deliver excellent service every time you shop with us, and to do this, we need to use some of your Personal Information. This Privacy and Protection Policy describes how we handle the Personal Information we collect about you and/or receive from you. By using our Platforms, you agree to the processing of your Personal Information as set out in this Privacy and Protection Policy.

Introduction

This is the Data Privacy and Protection Policy of Loita Trading Services t/a Loita Business. Loita Trading Services is a private company incorporated in the Republic of South Africa with registration number 2020/085253/07. Our principal place of business is at 5 Ground Floor, No.1 Melrose Boulevard, Melrose Arch, 2076, Johannesburg, South Africa. The Loita Business Marketplace and Software Services (referred to in this document together as the “Loita Business Marketplace”; “Loita Business”; “Platform” or “Marketplace”) are operated by Loita Trading Services (Pty) Ltd (“Loita Business”, “we” or “us”) with certain operations subcontracted to Loita Trading Services affiliated companies and subcontractors.

1. We provide the following services (“Services”)
   • Business-to-Business (B2B) marketplace platform, to customers (the “Marketplace”).
   • Tech-enabled trade and supply chain finance platform
   • Networked Trade Platform for digitalising, automating, and streamlining trade related services.
2. We also operate a website at www.loitabusiness.com (Website) as well as LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram and may use other social media sites from time to time (all these, collectively, the Sites)
3. This Loita Business Privacy Policy (together with our Terms of Use and any other documents referred to in it) sets out the basis for processing of any Personal Data we collect (or which is provided to us) from the companies who use the Loita Business Marketplace and associated service offerings for businesses, including Personal Data associated with the users authorized by such companies. Third parties may offer their own software from the Loita Business Marketplace and in use of such software, the privacy statement of the third party applies, and this Privacy Policy does not.
4. We use the terms “you” and “your” in this document to refer to users of the solution authorized to use the Loita Business Marketplace and its associated services for the benefit of a business or organization and have drafted this policy to speak to you, as a user.
5. This policy does not address the handling of personal data by Loita Business Marketplace gathered from or submitted by visitors to Loita Business Marketplace marketing website pages, educational events, webinars, conferences, and other marketing activities. Processing of personal data by Loita Business related to such marketing activities is governed by the Loita Business Marketplace Website Privacy Policy.

Definition of terms

1. 1. “Personal Data” means the information identifiable as associated with an individual human being such as name, email address, username, telephone number, company name, country of business, country code (which will be displayed in the material you submit) as referenced below.
   2. “Loita Business Customer” means the organization or business entity that is subscribed to or authorized to use the Loita Business Marketplace and its associated services. Loita Business customers use the Marketplace and its associated services as “buyers” or “sellers” to collaborate and exchange business documents and take advantage of other offerings (whether from Loita Business or third-party service companies) accessible via the Loita Business Marketplace

1. “User” means any person using our Marketplace and its associated services (whether that person has paid for such use or not) and “Users”, “you” and “your” shall be construed accordingly. Each User is associated with and is using the Marketplace and its associated services on behalf of a Loita Business Customer referred to sometimes below as “your company.”

Information we may collect about you

1. 1. User Accounts: When you register your company on the Marketplace or add a new User to your company’s account, we will collect the individual’s first and last name, a username, country of business and business email address. Individuals may also submit a business phone number and title. We do not collect an individual’s home address. Individuals should not submit personal credit card numbers, personal tax identifiers, or medical information to the Marketplace.
   2. We may collect and process the following information (which may include Personal Information) about you: information that you provide by filling in forms on the Sites; information provided at the time of subscribing to our Services, posting material or requesting further services; information that we may ask you for if you enter any competition or promotion featured on our Sites or if you report a problem with our Sites and/or our Services; information that you provide, such as new or deleted postings, new or deleted comments, keyword searches, scam reports and new contact details; details of the fulfilment of any contract you enter into with us; and details of your visits to the Sites (including, but not limited to, traffic data, location data, weblogs and other communication data, whether this is required for our own billing purposes or otherwise) and the resources that you access.
   3. If you contact us, we may keep a record of that correspondence.
   4. We may ask you to complete surveys that we use for research purposes, although you do not have to respond to them.
   5. Personal Data in Transactions: Some business documents exchanged on the Marketplace and via the various services available from the Marketplace may include Personal Data but are not required to do so. Increasingly companies are not including individual contact names but rather department email addresses and phone numbers on their transaction documents (for example: accountspayable@goodsupply.com rather than “Sue Smith, Accounts Payable, Good Supply Company”).

1. Certain Services may require additional Personal Data to be submitted to Loita Business via the Marketplace or other channels, such as KYC information requested in connection with the supply chain finance programs, and in such cases, Loita Business will provide additional clarification in relation to the request.
2. Device Information: Information about your device, including hardware model, operating system and version, device name, unique device identifier, mobile network information, and information about the device’s interaction with our Services.
3. We will collect information about how you transact with the marketplace using our Services, including access time, “log-in” and “log-out” information, browser type and language, country and language setting on your device, IP address, other attributes about your browser, mobile device, and operating system, features you use, and the date and time of use of the Services.

Why we need this information?

1. User Accounts: We will need your name and username to authenticate your user account and validate it with your company’s usage of our Marketplace, so that you can benefit from the Software Services that are being provided to your company. We will need your email address to send you an activation link to your profile so that you can receive business documents and network requests on behalf of your company. We will also need your email address in case you forget your password or wish to receive emails from us with news about our services or changes to any of our policies or terms and conditions. Your IP address is logged by us in association with transactions and activities on the Marketplace so that we mitigate spam, fraud, or abuse of our Marketplace. We will store this data for as long as necessary for the purposes of the Services as agreed in our agreement with your company, unless we are required, for legal reasons or under exceptional circumstances, to retain this data for an extended period, or removal is technically impractical. For so long as it is stored, we will protect the personal data according to the Loita Business Information Security Policy and as agreed with your company.
2. Personal Data in Transactions: Loita Business Customers decide how much or how little Personal Data to include in the business documents exchanged on the Marketplace, however Loita Business Customers may not allow submission of personal medical information, personal tax identification or personal financial information (“Sensitive Personal Information“) or other sensitive personal data requiring special protection measures based on local law to the Marketplace.
3. Loita Business Customers use the Marketplace to store business contact information about their trading partners to facilitate engagement and collaboration with such parties by the Loita Business Customer and by Loita Business acting on the customer’s behalf. For Loita Business to perform certain actions related to seller and buyer onboarding, Loita Business needs some business contact information for trading partners which can include Personal Data.

How your information is used and disclosed

1. We use your user account data to administer the Marketplace, log transactions, and otherwise provide the Services as agreed with your company. Others in your company may also have access to your user account data and may be the ones to administer changes to the data.
2. We will not share your login data (your name, username, email address and IP address) with anyone other than our service providers and others in your company (or the Loita Business Customer who manages your user account) except in the circumstances referred to in this policy or in agreement with the Loita Business Customer.
3. From time to time, we communicate to users using the email address they’ve submitted, to notify them of updates or changes to the Marketplace or Services, announce changes to policies, request information regarding a support issue, and other standard communications associated with the operation and management of an online service. In most cases such communications will be directed to the “Admin” level users who will then communicate with other users from their company.
4. From time to time, we may send you, as a representative of Loita Business Customer, news, updates, and sales offers which you can easily opt out of receiving by clicking “unsubscribe” in the relevant email.
5. Loita Business may use the business contact information stored by you in the Marketplace in performance of the Services for the Loita Business Customer, and as may be required by law for compliance.

Storage of your personal information

1. Your account will be secured with a password which enables you to access the Marketplace. You are responsible for keeping this password confidential. You should never share your password with anyone.
2. Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to our Marketplace; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access as described in the Loita Business Information Security Policy

Cookies

1. We make use of log files. The information inside the log files includes type of browser, internet service provider (ISP), date/time stamp, referring/exit pages, and number of clicks to analyse trends, administer the Sites, track users’ movement around the Sites, and gather demographic information. This is statistical data about our users’ browsing actions and patterns and does not identify any individual.
2. We may use cookies to manage our users’ sessions and to store preferences, tracking information, and language selection (Cookies). Cookies may be used whether you register with us or not. The types of information a Cookie collects include the date and time you visited the Sites, your browsing history, your preferences, and your username.
3. In some instances, our third-party service providers may use Cookies on the Sites. We cannot control or access Cookies used by third party service providers. This Privacy Policy covers only Cookies used by us, and not any Cookies used by third parties.
4. Cookies enable us to estimate the Sites’ audience size and usage pattern; record user-specific information in respect of which pages the user access or visit; store information about your preferences, which allows us to customize the Sites according to your individual interests; speed up your searches; and recognize you when you return to the Sites.
5. You can either accept or decline the use of Cookies on your computer, whether you are registered with us or not. Typically, you can configure your browser to not accept Cookies. However, declining the use of Cookies may limit your access to certain features of the Sites. For example, you may have difficulty using certain interactive features of the Sites, such as the “Contact Us” feature on our website.

Updating personal data

We will need you to help us ensure the Personal Data you provided to us is accurate and up to date. If you wish to correct and update any of your Personal Data, you may do so by updating the Personal Data through the preferences available in your account. Your company’s administrator may also be able to assist with changes. Note that some changes or removal of your account need to be requested more formally by your company’s administrator because Loita Business is operating the Marketplace for the benefit of and at the instruction of the Loita Business Customer.

Third parties and disclosures

1. Onward transfers –In the event of onward transfers of personal data, Loita Business retains responsibility for only allowing further processing of data by third parties acting on our behalf to be done in a manner that is consistent with our agreement with your company or the Loita Business Customer including, as may apply to Personal Data from individuals in the European Union and other countries with international transfer restrictions in their data protection laws, the Standard Contractual Clauses, and/or a Data Processing Agreement executed between Loita Business and the Loita Business Customer.
2. Service Providers –We engage third- party service providers to perform functions and provide services to us. Where allowed by law, we may share your Personal Data with such service providers subject to obligations consistent with this policy and any other appropriate confidentiality and security measures, and on the condition that the third parties use your private personal data only on our behalf and pursuant to our instructions. Tradeshift maintains a list of service providers who perform follow-on processing of Personal Data. We endeavour to keep the list up to date and each Loita Business Customer may request the latest list at any time.
3. In addition, the Sites may occasionally contain links to third-party websites (Third-Party Websites). If you click on the links to Third-Party Websites, you leave the Site in question. We are not responsible for the content of these Third-Party Websites or for the security of your Personal Information when you use the Third-Party Websites. These third-party service providers and Third-Party Websites may have their own privacy policies governing the storage and retention of your Personal Information that you may be subject to. They may also collect information that is not Personal Information such as your browser specification, or operating system.
4. Authorized Personnel – Our employees, agents, consultants, contractors, or other authorized personnel may have access to user information as necessary in the normal course of our business in support of operations, customer care and communications, usage tracking, processing of requested transactions, and security incident investigations.
5. Business Transfers –If the Marketplace, a specific business line, a Software Service, Loita Business, or substantially all its assets, were acquired, liquidated, or dissolved, user information including Personal Data would be one of the assets that is transferred but the successor business would be bound by the terms of our agreements with Loita Business Customers, including this policy.
6. Government, Law Enforcement and Third Parties –We may disclose information, including, without limitation, Personal Data to comply with applicable laws, regulations, legal processes, or governmental requests including the export laws of various countries to prevent access and use of the Services by certain entities and individuals. We reserve the right to disclose a user’s Personal Data if we believe, in good faith, that the user is in violation of the Terms of Service or other agreement with Loita Business, even without a subpoena, warrant or other court order.
7. Third-party advertising companies appointed by Loita Business and other third-party vendors may use information (not Personal Information) about your visits to the Sites and Third-Party Websites to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you.

Accessing and modifying personal information and communication

1. If you have a Loita Business Marketplace account, you can help ensure that your contact information and preferences are accurate, complete, and up to date by logging in to your Loita Business Marketplace account. For other Personal Data we hold, we will provide you with access for any purpose including requesting that we correct the data if it is inaccurate or delete the data if we are not required to retain it by law or for legitimate business purposes. We may decline to process requests that are frivolous/vexatious, jeopardize the privacy of others, are extremely impractical, or for which access is not otherwise required by local law.
2. Choice and Opt-Out– We provide you the ability to exercise certain controls and choices regarding our collection, use and sharing of your information, but since your user account is managed by the Loita Business Customer, some choices must be made through your company and not from you, the individual.

Protecting your personal information

1. You are a valued customer, and we recognize that protecting your privacy is important to you. For this reason, we are committed to protecting the Personal Information you provide in a variety of ways. We do not directly process any payments.
2. We have put in place physical, electronic, and procedural controls designed to help prevent unauthorized access, to maintain data security, and to correctly use the information we collect online. These safeguards vary based on the sensitivity of the information that we collect and store. The Loita Business Information Security Policy provides further information about our approach to security of our systems underlying the Marketplace. However, as with most electronic transactions, no method is 100% safe.
3. While we strive to use a commercially acceptable means to protect the Personal Information you provide, we cannot guarantee its security. Therefore, you acknowledge and agree that we assume no liability regarding the theft, loss, alteration or misuse of personal or other information or content, including, without limitation, such information that has been provided to third parties or other users, or with regards to the failure of a third party to abide by the agreement between us and such third party.

Your rights in relation to your personal information

1. Subject to applicable law including relevant data protection laws, in addition to your ability to withdraw any consent you have given to our processing your Personal Information, you may have several rights in connection with the processing of your Personal Information, including:
2. the right to request access to your Personal Information that we process or control, including the right to know the categories and specific pieces of personal information we collect;
   • the right to request disclosure of information collected
3. the right to request rectification of any inaccuracies in your Personal Information or, taking into account the purposes of our processing, to request that incomplete information is completed;
4. the right to request, on legitimate grounds as specified in law, erasure of your Personal Information that we process or control;
5. the right to the restriction of processing of your Personal Information that we process or control;
6. the right to object, on legitimate grounds as specified in law, to the processing of your Personal Information; and
7. the right to lodge complaints regarding the processing of your Personal Information with the relevant data protection regulator.
8. If you would like to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact us using the contact details set out below.
9. As a registered user, you can exercise all your rights set out above in terms of POPIA by going to the Data & Privacy section of our Help Centre.
10. As any other user, you can exercise all your rights as set out above by referring to our process set out in our PAIA Manual, here .

How to lodge a complaint with the information regulator

1. If you have any complaints about this Privacy Policy or our compliance with this Privacy Policy, you can lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator.
2. The contact details of the Information Regulator are available on its website at: https://justice.gov.za/inforeg/
3. This version of the Privacy Policy replaces any preceding privacy policy provisions on our website. We may occasionally update this Privacy Policy. When you use our Platforms the version of the Privacy Policy posted on this page applies to you.

Legitimate interest

Loita Business considers the following uses of Personal Data in relation to use of the Software Services and Loita Business Marketplace to constitute a legitimate interest, as that term is used in EU data protection law: Contacting you for billing purposes, administrative notices, system outage information, or investigation of security incidents, product and service updates and changes, legal disputes, claims of fraudulent use of the system or violation of the Terms of Service. If you do not agree with this, you may object as set out in this policy.

When we act as a service provider (for example, by providing our services to another company that you interact with), we follow the instructions of the business that engaged us with respect to how we process your personal information. If you would like more information about how your personal information is processed by other companies, including companies that engage us as a service provider, please contact those companies directly.

Additional Disclosures

1. We do not sell personal information of any individual, including personal information of minors under 16 years of age.
2. We have disclosed the following categories of personal information for a business purpose in the 12 months prior to this Policy’s last update.
   • Identifiers
   • Demographic Information
   • Commercial Information
   • Internet or other electronic network activity information
   • Geolocation data
   • Audio, electronic, visual, or similar information
   • Professional or employment-related information
   • Inferences drawn from any of the above information.

We have not disclosed any personal information for valuable consideration in the 12 months prior to this Policy’s last update.

Notice of changes to the privacy policy

Although most changes are likely to be minor, we may change our Loita Business Marketplace Privacy Policy from time to time, and in our sole discretion and subject to our agreements with Loita Business Marketplace Customers. Your continued use of the Marketplace after any change in this policy will constitute your acceptance of the changes.

How to contact us

If you have any questions, feedback, requests or to report a violation regarding the Privacy Policy, you may email us at legal@loitabusiness.com ; feedback@loitabusiness.com or contact us by mail addressed to: 5 Ground Floor, No.1 Melrose Boulevard, Melrose Arch, 2076, Johannesburg, South Africa.

Loita Business Marketplace is a cloud business-to-business (B2B) marketplace and e-procurement platform for buyers and suppliers to digitally connect, collaborate, source, transact and grow their relationships in a more secure and trusted environment across 190+ countries globally. To learn more about Loita Business Marketplace solutions, visit www.loitabusiness.com