Privacy notice
This explains what we do with your personal information. It's written to be read, not to protect us — if anything here is unclear, ask and we'll explain it plainly.
The responsible party is Safeman Solutions, contactable at support@viljoen.co.za. This notice is written with the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (POPIA) in mind.
What we collect
When you request an address:
- Your name
- The inbox you want mail forwarded to — this is also where we reply
- The address you'd like at viljoen.co.za
- Whatever you tell us about your connection to the name, if you choose to
- The IP address the request came from, and the time it arrived
Once your address is running, we additionally hold:
- The route itself — which viljoen.co.za address points at which destination inbox
- The dates in its lifecycle: confirmed, re-confirmed each year, suspended, closed
- Delivery records — whether forwarding to your inbox succeeded or bounced. We keep these because persistent bounces are how we tell an address has gone dead.
- Any correspondence between us
If you pay for a Hosted mailbox, also:
- A payment reference from PayFast confirming payment was received
- The contents of the mailbox itself, until you or we delete it
We deliberately do not collect:
- Identity documents. No ID numbers, no passports, no proof of address. We check that you control the inbox you gave us, and we read every request by hand — we do not collect documents we would then have to protect.
- Card details. Payment happens on PayFast's systems. Card data never reaches this website or us.
- Analytics and tracking. This website sets no cookies, runs no analytics, loads nothing from any other company's servers, and has no advertising trackers.
Your actual mail
Your email is yours. We do not read, scan, index, or analyse it, and we never use it to build a profile of you or to target advertising.
On the free Routed tier we do not store your mail at all. A message addressed to you passes through our systems and is handed straight on to your own inbox. It exists with us only for the seconds that takes, plus a short period in a queue if your provider is temporarily unreachable. There is no mailbox on our side and nothing accumulates.
On a Hosted mailbox your mail is stored with us, because that is the point of it — it sits there until you delete it, and it is deleted when the mailbox is.
Two narrow exceptions apply to both, and they are the only ones: if you ask us for help with a specific message and we need to look at it to assist you, or if we are legally compelled by a valid court order.
We do filter for spam and malware before forwarding. That is automated, it protects your inbox and the domain's standing, and no person reads the messages involved.
Why we hold it, and on what basis
- To answer your request and decide whether we can offer you the address — this is at your request, before entering a contract.
- To provide the service you've paid for — performance of our contract with you.
- To keep records of payments — our legal obligations, including tax.
- To protect the service from abuse and to keep our mail reputation intact, which protects every customer — our legitimate interest.
Who we share it with
We do not sell your information. We never rent or trade mailing lists. We share only with:
- Our hosting provider, who operates the servers your mailbox runs on.
- PayFast, who process payments. They handle your card details under their own privacy terms; we receive only confirmation and a reference.
- Authorities, where we're legally required to.
Your mail is hosted on South African infrastructure.
How long we keep it
- Requests we decline, or that are never confirmed: up to 12 months, then deleted.
- Forwarded mail: not retained — it passes through and is gone.
- Delivery and bounce records: 12 months.
- Your route and its destination inbox: for as long as the address is running, then deleted when it is closed.
- Mailbox contents (Hosted only): until 30 days after suspension, at which point the mailbox and everything in it is deleted permanently.
- Payment records: five years after your last transaction, as South African tax and company law requires.
- The fact that a name was once issued and retired: kept indefinitely, as a name only. We keep this so a retired address is never handed to somebody else — see the terms. It is a list of addresses, not of people.
Your rights
Under POPIA you may:
- Ask what personal information we hold about you, and get a copy
- Ask us to correct anything that's wrong
- Ask us to delete information we no longer have a reason to keep
- Object to how we're using your information
- Complain to the Information Regulator of South Africa
Email support@viljoen.co.za and we'll respond within 30 days. There's no charge for a reasonable request.
Keeping it safe
Connections to this website and to your mailbox are encrypted. Request details are stored where they cannot be reached from the public web. Access is limited to the people who run the service.
No system is perfectly secure. If a breach affects your personal information, we will notify you and the Information Regulator, as POPIA requires.
Changes
If we change this notice in a way that materially affects you, we'll email you. The date at the top always reflects the current version.
Contact
Safeman Solutions — support@viljoen.co.za.
If you're not satisfied with how we've handled your information, you can complain to the Information Regulator (South Africa) at complaints.IR@justice.gov.za.