This Privacy Statement sets out how Omega Compliance Solutions (Pty) Ltd uses, discloses, and protects any personal information that you provide or that we collect, when you use our website, or that we collect directly from you.
We collect personal information to be able to provide you with compliance monitoring, advice, and management services to ensure that we and the regulators have the correct and up to date information.
“Personal Information” means information relating to an identifiable, living, natural person and, where applicable, an identifiable, existing juristic person.
This Privacy Statement describes how we handle personal information that we collect from emails and other communications with us.
We’re committed to ensuring that your personal information is protected. If we ask you to provide certain information by which you can be identified, it will only be used in accordance with this Privacy Statement. If you don’t wish to provide personal information to us, then you don’t have to do so, but it may affect the products and services offered and our ability to provide them.
Omega Compliance Solutions recognises the importance of protecting your personal information, and as such subscribes to the principles outlined in applicable privacy legislation that governs your right to having your personal information kept private.
Collection of personal information
Personal information will be collected directly from yourself, the data subject, except if:
- Your personal information is contained in a public record or has deliberately been made public by yourself.
- You have consented to the collection of the personal information from another source.
- Supplied to us by your employer for registration, vetting your compliance with the fit and proper requirements.
Depending on your relationship with us, personal information collected about you may include:
- Your name
- Address
- ID/passport numbers
- Email and telephone details
- Gender
- Marital status
- Family status
- Date of birth
- Registration numbers
- Educational background
- Activity records, such as continuous professional development
- Photos
- Employment history, skills and experience
- Professional licenses and affiliations
- Location data
- Financial information and banking details such as account numbers
In certain cases, we may receive sensitive information about your trade union membership, religious beliefs, political opinions, family medical history, or genetic information. In addition, we may obtain information about your criminal record or civil litigation history in the process of preventing, detecting and investigating fraud, reporting to the regulators, and assisting in their surveillance and enforcement responsibilities. We may also obtain sensitive information if you voluntarily provide it to us.
How we use your personal information
We may use your personal information to:
- Communicate with you and others as part of our business.
- Manage our business operations, including those relating to finance and accounting, billing, collections and legislative update circulation, and website usage.
- Fulfil our contractual obligations in terms of our appointment as compliance officers.
- Communicate and maintain information about your company with the relevant regulatory authorities.
- Resolve complaints, and handle requests for data access or correction.
- Comply with applicable laws and regulatory obligations, such as those relating to anti-money laundering and anti-terrorism; comply with legal process; and respond to requests from public and governmental authorities.
- Establish and defend legal rights; protect our operations or those of any of our group companies or business partners, our rights, privacy, safety or property, and/or that of our group companies, you, or others; and pursue available remedies or limit our damages.
Sharing your personal information
Omega Compliance Solutions does not and will not sell or provide your personal information to third parties for independent use. We may, however, share your personal information with our business partners if that information is required to provide the product or service you have requested. However, our business partners will adhere to using your personal information only as directed by Omega Compliance Solutions.
The following list includes, but is not limited to, some of the instances when we disclose the personal information obtained from you:
- When any regulatory authority for the various financial sectors requests same.
- To comply with any regulation passed under relevant legislation, or any legal process.
- To enforce and protect our rights and property (including intellectual property) and/or where we have a legitimate interest to do so.
- When you have expressly authorised us to do so.
- If we undergo a change in ownership.
Omega Compliance Solutions may make personal information available to:
- Our service providers
External third-party service providers, such as accountants, auditors, experts, lawyers, and other outside professional advisors; IT systems, support and hosting service providers; printing, advertising, marketing and market research and analysis service providers; banks and financial institutions that service our accounts; similar third-party vendors and outsourced service providers that assist us in carrying out business activities. - Governmental authorities and third parties involved in court action
Omega Compliance Solutions may also share personal information with governmental or other public authorities (including, but not limited to, workers’ compensation boards, courts, law enforcement, tax authorities and criminal investigations agencies); and third-party civil legal process participants and their accountants, auditors, lawyers, and other advisors and representatives as we believe to be necessary or appropriate: (a) to comply with applicable law; (b) to comply with legal process; (c) to respond to requests from public and government authorities including public and government authorities outside your country of residence; (d) to enforce our terms and conditions; (e) to protect our operations or those of any of our group companies; (f) to protect our rights, privacy, safety or property, you or others; and (g) to allow us to pursue available remedies or limit our damages. - Other third parties
We may share personal information with payees; as well as purchasers and prospective purchasers or other parties in any actual or proposed reorganisation, merger, sale, joint venture, assignment, transfer, or other transaction relating to all or any portion of our business, assets, or stock.
Transferring of your personal information internationally
Due to the nature of our business, for the purposes set out above we may transfer personal information to parties located in other countries. We may transfer information internationally to our service providers.
Protecting your personal information
To help protect the privacy of data and personal information you transmit through use of this site, we maintain physical, technical and administrative safeguards. We update and test our security technology on an ongoing basis. We restrict access to your personally identifiable information to those employees who need to know that information to provide services to you. In addition, we train our employees about the importance of confidentiality and maintaining the privacy and security of your information. We commit to taking appropriate disciplinary measures to enforce our employees’ privacy responsibilities.
Omega Compliance Solutions will take appropriate technical, physical, legal, and organisational measures, which are consistent with applicable privacy and data security laws. Unfortunately, no data transmission over the internet or data storage system can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. If you have reason to believe that your interaction with us is no longer secure, please immediately notify us. (See the “Who to Contact About Your Personal Information” section below.)
When Omega Compliance Solutions provides personal information to a service provider, the service provider will be selected carefully and required to use appropriate measures to protect the confidentiality and security of the personal information.
Retention of your personal information
Omega Compliance Solutions takes reasonable steps to ensure that the personal information we process is reliable for its intended use, and as accurate and complete as is necessary to carry out the purposes described in this Privacy Statement. Omega Compliance Solutions will retain personal information for the period necessary to fulfil the purposes outlined in this Privacy Statement, unless a longer retention period is required or permitted by law.
COOKIES AND WEB BEACONS
Cookies are pieces of data that a website transfers to a user’s hard drive for record-keeping purposes. Web beacons are transparent pixel images that are used in collecting information about website usage, email response, and tracking.
Our website uses cookies and web beacons to provide enhanced functionality on the site. These cookies may be delivered in a first-party or third-party context. Omega Compliance Solutions also use cookies and web beacons in association with emails delivered by us. Our website also captures limited information (user-agent, HTTP referrer, last URL requested by the user, client-side, and server-side clickstream) about visits to our site; we may use this information to analyse general traffic patterns, legislative update reader statistics, and to perform routine system maintenance. You have many choices with regards to the management of cookies on your computer. All major browsers allow you to block or delete cookies from your system. To learn more about your ability to manage cookies and web beacons, please consult the privacy features in your browser.
Our website uses cookies, which are text files placed on your computer, to help the website analyse how users use the site. You may refuse the use of cookies by selecting the appropriate settings on your browser, however please note that if you do this you may not be able to use the full functionality of our website. By using our website, you consent to the processing of data about you in the manner and for the purposes set out above.
Inapplicability of privacy statements of any linked sites or other third parties
This Privacy Statement only addresses Omega Compliance Solutions’ use and disclosure of your personally identifiable information. As our website may contain links to other websites, please be aware that we are not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites, and we are not liable for their misuse of personally identifiable information. We encourage you to be aware that when you go to another website you should carefully read its Privacy Statement.
General Legal Notice and Disclaimer
Access to the information contained on our website is provided by Omega Compliance Solutions to its clients and non-clients as a service to financial services providers. Omega Compliance Solutions, including its employees and agents, is not responsible for, and expressly disclaims all liability for, damages of any kind arising out of use, reference to, or reliance on the information available through our website or any other means. No approvals, recommendations, endorsements, guarantees or warranties, including, but not limited to, any express or implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for any particular use or purpose of products or services named on this site are made by Omega Compliance Solutions.
Your access to and updating of personal information
Reasonable access to personally identifiable information will be provided within 30 days at no cost to Omega Compliance Solutions’ customers and others upon request made to Omega Compliance Solutions at the contact information provided below. If access cannot be provided within that time frame, Omega Compliance Solutions will provide the requesting party a date when the information will be provided. If for some reason access is denied, Omega Compliance Solutions will provide an explanation as to why access has been denied.
Conditions of use, notices, and changes to our Privacy Statement
By using our services and website, you agree to the terms and conditions contained in this Privacy Statement and Conditions of Use and/or any other agreement that we might have with you. If you do not agree to any of these terms and conditions, you should not use our website, or any Omega Compliance Solutions benefits or services. You agree that any dispute over privacy or the terms contained in this Privacy Statement and Conditions of Use, or any other agreement we have with you, will be governed by the laws of South Africa. You also agree to arbitrate such disputes in South Africa, and to abide by any limitation on damages contained in any agreement we may have with you.
As our organisation changes from time to time, this Privacy Statement and Conditions of Use is expected to change as well. We reserve the right to amend the Privacy Statement and Conditions of Use at any time, for any reason, without notice to you, other than the posting of the amended Privacy and Conditions of Use on our website. You should check our site frequently to see the current Privacy Statement and Conditions of Use that are in effect and any changes that may have been made to it. The provisions contained herein supersede all previous notices or statements regarding our privacy practices and the terms and conditions that govern the use of our services and website.
Questions regarding the Privacy Statement and Conditions of Use
If you have any questions about our Privacy Statement and Conditions of Use, or any concern about privacy at Omega Compliance Solutions or the use of our website in general, please contact us by email at info@omegacs.co.za.
This policy is effective from 1 June 2021.