Privacy Policy

Surveyr is a product of Codegarden (Pty) Ltd, registration number 2019/488172/07, a company based in Johannesburg, South Africa (“Surveyr”, “we”, “us”). We are the responsible party for the personal information described in this policy, except where we process information on behalf of our customers (see section 2).

You can reach us, and our Information Officer, at support@surveyr.africa.

This policy covers two groups of people:

• Customers and their teams: people who create a Surveyr account and use the dashboard at surveyr.africa to run research, live events or courses.
• Participants: people who answer surveys, take part in live events or follow courses on WhatsApp.

When a participant answers on WhatsApp, they do so for the organisation that sent the survey, event or course. That organisation decides what to ask and what to do with the answers; we process the answers on its behalf, as an operator under POPIA. If you are a participant, the organisation that invited you can tell you how it uses your answers, and you can also contact us.

Account information. When you create an account we collect your first name, last name, email address, password (stored only as a secure hash, never in readable form) and your workspace or organisation name. You may also give us your country, industry and how you heard about us.

Google sign-in. If you choose to sign in with Google, Google shares your name, email address, profile photo and Google account ID with us. Nothing else: we do not receive your Google password, contacts, emails or files. See section 6.

Participants on WhatsApp. When someone takes part on WhatsApp we receive their WhatsApp phone number and profile name, the answers and messages they send, any media they choose to send, their location if they choose to share it, their language preference and their consent to take part.

Usage and device information. When you use the dashboard we record your IP address, browser and device type for your sign-in sessions and for security, and keep technical logs to run and fix the service.

Payments. Payments are processed by PayFast. We receive confirmation of a payment and its status; we never see or store your card details.

Cookies. We use a cookie to keep you signed in, which the dashboard needs to work. With your consent, our public website uses Google’s advertising and analytics tags to measure our campaigns. You can change your choice in the cookie banner.

We use personal information to:

• provide Surveyr: run surveys, AI interviews, live events and courses on WhatsApp, and show the results to the organisation that ran them;
• create and secure your account, sign you in and keep your sessions safe;
• send service emails, such as account activation, password resets, team invitations and usage notices;
• send product news and tips, which you can unsubscribe from at any time;
• bill for subscriptions and usage;
• provide support, fix problems, prevent fraud and abuse, and improve Surveyr;
• meet our legal obligations.

AI and translation features. When an organisation uses features such as generating questions, AI interviews, analysing answers or translating into African languages, the relevant questions and answers are sent to our AI and translation providers (listed in section 5) to produce the result. We do not use your data to train our own AI models, and we do not sell personal information.

We share personal information only as needed to run Surveyr:

• The organisation you answered: participants’ answers go to the organisation that ran the survey, event or course.
• Meta (WhatsApp Business Platform): to send and receive WhatsApp messages.
• OpenAI and Google (Gemini): for AI features, as described in section 4.
• Lelapa AI: to translate surveys and answers into and from African languages.
• Pinecone: to search knowledge-base documents that an organisation uploads for its AI agent.
• Hosting and storage: Render (hosting), MongoDB Atlas (database) and Cloudinary (images and media).
• Email: Resend, to deliver service and product emails.
• Payments: PayFast.
• Error monitoring: Sentry, to detect and fix faults.
• Google: for Google sign-in, the Google Sheets integration when an organisation connects it, and, with your consent, advertising and analytics on our public website.

We may also share information where the law requires it, to protect the rights, property or safety of Surveyr, our users or others, or as part of a merger or sale of our business, in which case this policy continues to apply.

What we access. If you sign in with Google, we receive only your name, email address, profile photo and Google account ID. If an organisation connects the Google Sheets integration, we receive permission to create and update the Google Sheets it chooses for its results, and the email address of the connected Google account.

How we use it. We use Google sign-in information only to create your account or sign you in, and to show your name and photo in the dashboard. We use Google Sheets access only to write the organisation’s survey results to the sheets it chose.

Sharing and limits. We do not sell Google user data, use it for advertising, or share it with anyone except as needed to provide these features, to keep the service secure, or where the law requires. People at Surveyr do not read it unless you ask us to (for example, for support), it is needed for security, or the law requires it.

Surveyr’s use and transfer to any other app of information received from Google APIs will adhere to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.

Removing access. You can remove Surveyr’s access at any time in your Google Account under Security, Third-party apps with account access. You can also ask us to delete your account (section 9).

Some of our providers process information outside South Africa, for example in the United States and the European Union. We use providers that are bound by agreements or laws giving personal information a level of protection comparable to POPIA.

We keep account information while your account is active. When you delete your account, it is scheduled for deletion after 21 days, during which you can cancel; after that, we delete or anonymise your personal information, except records we must keep by law, such as billing records.

Organisations decide how long they keep participants’ answers and can delete surveys and responses from the dashboard. Technical logs are kept for a limited period for security and troubleshooting.

Information is encrypted in transit (HTTPS), passwords are stored only as secure hashes, access to data is limited to the organisation it belongs to and to people at Surveyr who need it to run the service, and sign-in sessions expire. No system is perfectly secure, but we work to protect your information and will notify you and the Information Regulator of a security compromise as POPIA requires.

Under the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA), you can:

• ask what personal information we hold about you and get a copy;
• ask us to correct or delete it;
• object to how we use it, and withdraw consent you have given;
• unsubscribe from product emails at any time;
• complain to the Information Regulator of South Africa (inforegulator.org.za).

Account holders can update their details in the dashboard and delete their account under Settings. Participants can stop taking part at any time and can ask the organisation that invited them, or us, to delete their answers. Email support@surveyr.africa and we will respond within a reasonable time.

Surveyr accounts are for people aged 18 and older. Organisations that invite children to take part, such as schools, are responsible for getting the consent of a parent or guardian where the law requires it.

We may update this policy as Surveyr changes or the law requires. The date at the top shows the latest version, and we will tell account holders about significant changes by email or in the dashboard.

Codegarden (Pty) Ltd, Johannesburg, South Africa. Questions, requests and complaints about privacy go to our Information Officer at support@surveyr.africa.