How Bizniz Grid looks after personal information

1Who we are

Bizniz Grid is operated by Keanne Software (Pty) Ltd, registration number 2022/464817/07, of 110 Dassiebos, Wonderboom, Pretoria, South Africa (“we”, “us”). For the personal information described in this policy, we are the responsible party under the Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013 (POPIA).

Our Information Officer is Karel Vermaak. You can reach them at info@bzgrid.com or on +27 82 929 5967.

2What this policy covers

• This website, bzgrid.com.
• The Bizniz Grid platform: the public site where people search for businesses and read about them, the webpages and booking screens businesses publish with us, and the portal businesses use to run them.
• The emails, text messages and WhatsApp messages the platform sends.

When you contact or book a business through Bizniz Grid, that business receives your details too, and decides how it uses them for its own work. Its own privacy policy applies to that part.

3What we collect

From businesses and the people who work in them

• Sign-in details. The name and email address of everyone who signs in, their role in the business, and when they last used the portal. Passwords are handled by Google Firebase Authentication; we never see them.
• The business record. What a business enters or confirms about itself: its name, description, contact details, places and opening hours, services and prices, its team members' names, roles and photos, questions customers ask and their answers, testimonials, policies and promotions. If the owner asks us to, we read the business's existing website to draft the record, and the owner reviews the draft before anything is saved.
• Checks. The phone number, email address and WhatsApp number a business confirms with a code, and its company registration number, which we check against the CIPC register. From the register we keep the company's registered name, status, type and registration date.
• Billing. For a paid plan: the billing name, email address and phone number, and the reference our payment provider, PayFast, gives us for the payment method. Card details go to PayFast directly; we never receive them.
• Use of AI features. Which AI features were used and what they cost, so that we can count each plan's AI credits.

From people who use the public site

You don't need an account to search, ask or book.

• Searches. The question you type (up to 500 characters) and, if you choose to share your location, an approximate position (to within about 100 metres) so that we can show businesses near you. We don't ask who you are, and searches aren't linked to a name.
• Front desk questions. A question you ask a business's front desk goes to our AI provider, which writes the answer from that business's record.
• Requests and messages. Your name, phone number and/or email address, your message, and the service and time you ask about. If you send a request from the front desk, the conversation goes with it, so that the business can see what you asked.
• Appointments and bookings. Your name, phone number, WhatsApp number and email address; your notes and answers to the business's questions; the service, person, place and time you choose; the agreement you ticked to share your details and receive messages; and what happens to the booking afterwards (confirmed, moved, cancelled, attended or missed). Online bookings need a WhatsApp number, because the confirmation and reminders are sent there.
• Saved businesses. Businesses you save are kept in your own browser, not by us.

Technical information

• Abuse protection. We limit how often one connection can use the service. With searches, requests and bookings we keep the name of your browser and a scrambled form of your IP address, made with a secret key, so that without the key it can't be turned back into your address.
• Server logs. Our servers keep standard records of requests, such as the address, time and page, for security and to find faults.
• Browser storage. The platform uses your browser's storage to keep business users signed in and to remember choices during a visit. We don't use advertising or analytics cookies. Pages on the platform load fonts from Google Fonts, so your browser connects to Google to show them.

This website

bzgrid.com sets no cookies, has no analytics or advertising, and loads nothing from other companies. Our web host keeps standard server logs.

4Why we use it

To provide the service a business signed up for: accounts, records, webpages, appointments and billing.

Our contract with the business.

To pass your request or booking to the business you chose, and to send you messages about it.

To do what you asked, and the agreement you give on the form.

To answer searches and front desk questions.

Our legitimate interest, and yours, in answering the question you asked.

To check businesses' details: phone, email and CIPC registration.

The business's request, and our legitimate interest in a catalogue people can trust.

To keep the service secure, stop abuse and fix faults.

Our legitimate interest.

To keep financial records.

The law.

We don't use personal information for advertising, and we don't sell it.

5Messages we send

To people who book or contact a business

• On WhatsApp: a confirmation when a booking is made or accepted, a message if the business moves or cancels it, and a reminder before it (the day before, an hour before, or both, as the business chooses). They come from Bizniz Grid's WhatsApp number and name the business you booked with. Most of them include a link to your booking, where you can see it and, while the business allows, change or cancel it.
• By email: confirmations and updates for some kinds of appointments.
• We send these only about an appointment you made or asked for. WhatsApp messages go out for a business only after it has proved its own WhatsApp number to us.
• Replies to our WhatsApp number aren't read. To reach the business, use the contact details on its page. To reach us, email info@bzgrid.com.
• To stop messages about a booking, cancel it from the link in your messages, or ask the business or us.

To businesses and their teams

• Emails about new requests and bookings, invitations to join a business's portal and, for people who take bookings, their own appointments.
• If the business chooses, a WhatsApp summary of the day's appointments each morning, to the business's own verified number.
• Codes to confirm a phone number, email address or WhatsApp number, by text message, email or WhatsApp.

We don't send marketing messages on WhatsApp.

6Who we share it with

• The business you contact or book with: what you send in the request or booking.
• People who visit a business's page: what the business publishes about itself, including the names, roles and photos of team members and the testimonials it chooses to show.
• Companies that run parts of the service for us, under agreements that require them to keep the information confidential and secure and to use it only to provide their service to us:
  • Amazon Web Services: servers, and the photos businesses upload
  • MongoDB (MongoDB Atlas): our database
  • Google: sign-in for business accounts (Firebase Authentication), and fonts
  • OpenAI: AI features (drafting records and webpages, answering searches and front desk questions, and creating images)
  • Meta: WhatsApp messages (WhatsApp Business Platform)
  • Email and text-message delivery services
  • PayFast: payments
  • The CIPC, directly or through a verification service: company registration checks
• Authorities, when the law requires it.
• A buyer, if our company or its business is sold or merged. The buyer must keep to this policy.

7Information that leaves South Africa

Some of these companies store or process information outside South Africa, OpenAI, Google and Meta among them. We use only providers that are bound by law, binding rules or agreements to protect personal information at least as well as POPIA requires.

8How we use AI

Bizniz Grid uses OpenAI's models to draft a business's record and webpage from what the owner writes, to answer searches and front desk questions from businesses' records, and to create images. Owners review drafted facts before they're used, and answers show which records they come from. Under OpenAI's terms for business customers, what we send through its API isn't used to train its models.

9How long we keep it

• Business accounts and records: while the account is open. When a business closes its account, we delete its information, except what the law requires us to keep.
• Requests, appointments and bookings: while the business uses Bizniz Grid, so that it can see its history, unless you or the business ask us to delete them sooner.
• Searches and technical records: only as long as we need them to run, protect and improve the service.
• Financial records: five years, as South African tax law requires.

10How we protect it

• Every connection is encrypted (HTTPS).
• People in a business see only what their role allows.
• Passwords are handled by Google Firebase, and card details by PayFast.
• The link to your booking is signed, so it can't be guessed.
• IP addresses are stored only in a scrambled form made with a secret key.

If we learn of a breach that affects your information, we'll tell you and the Information Regulator, as POPIA requires.

11Your rights

Under POPIA you may:

• ask whether we hold information about you, and for a copy of it;
• ask us to correct or delete it;
• object to our using it, where we rely on our legitimate interest;
• withdraw your agreement to messages at any time (this doesn't undo what was done before);
• complain to the Information Regulator.

Email info@bzgrid.com. We may ask you to confirm who you are, and we'll reply within 30 days.

12Deleting your information

• If you contacted or booked a business through Bizniz Grid: email info@bzgrid.com with the phone number or email address you used. We'll confirm it's you, delete your requests and bookings, and tell the businesses involved. To remove only one business's record of you, you can also ask that business.
• If you run a business on Bizniz Grid: the owner can delete an unused workspace in Portal Settings. To close an account that has history, email us, and we'll delete it except what the law requires us to keep.

13Children

Bizniz Grid is meant for adults. When a parent or guardian books for a child, they give the child's details on the child's behalf. If you believe a child has given us information without that, ask us to delete it.

14Changes to this policy

When we change this policy, we'll post the new version here with a new date. We'll tell businesses using Bizniz Grid by email about changes that matter to them.

15Contact us