1. Who we are

Telos is a web design, development and hosting studio based in South Africa. For the purposes of the Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013 (POPIA), Telos is the responsible party for the personal information described in this policy.

You can reach us at info@teloswebsite.co.za or +27 74 603 7083.

2. What we collect

Information you give us

When you fill in the contact form on this site, we collect your name, email address, your message, and a promo code if you enter one.

When you request a quote, we collect your name and phone number, and — where you choose to give them — your email address, the kind of business you run, the service you need, a rough budget, how you would prefer we contact you, and anything you tell us about your idea.

When you use the form on our homepage, we collect your name and email address, and — where you choose to give them — your WhatsApp number, your business, the services you are interested in, and anything else you tell us.

When you use our free website check, we collect the website address you enter and your email address, and keep the check's results with them so we can follow up if you ask us to. We fetch only that site's public homepage and its robots.txt and sitemap, and send the address to Google's PageSpeed Insights service for the scores in your report. To stop the check being abused, we count checks per connection for one hour using a scrambled code that cannot be turned back into your IP address, and we do not keep it with your details.

When you send us an enquiry with an email address, we immediately send you one automatic reply confirming we have it and explaining what happens next. That is the only automated email we send; it is not a mailing list.

If you contact us by phone, WhatsApp or email instead, we hold whatever you choose to tell us in that conversation.

Information we collect automatically

Our hosting provider keeps standard server logs, which include your IP address, browser type and the pages you request. These are used to keep the site running securely and to diagnose faults.

We also use the analytics tools described in section 4.

Client project information

If you become a client, we hold the information needed to do the work and bill for it — business details, billing details, domain and hosting records, and any content you send us for your website. Where we host your site, we may also process personal information belonging to your customers on your behalf. In that case you are the responsible party and we act as an operator under POPIA.

3. Why we use it

• To reply to your enquiry and give you a quote.
• To carry out work you have asked us to do, and to invoice you for it.
• To keep websites we host secure, backed up and running.
• To understand how this website is used, so we can make it better.
• To meet our legal and tax obligations.

We do this on the basis of your consent, our performance of a contract with you, our legitimate interest in running and improving the business, or a legal obligation — depending on which applies.

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not send marketing to people who have only asked us a question.

4. Cookies and analytics

This website uses the following tools. Google's tools load only if you choose "Accept" in the cookie banner; until then nothing is sent to Google. You can change your answer at any time with "Cookie settings" at the foot of every page. Except where noted, the tools below set cookies or similar identifiers in your browser.

• Google Ads (only if you accept) — tells us when an advert led to an enquiry, so we do not waste money on advertising that does not work.
• Google Analytics 4 (only if you accept) — aggregate statistics about how many people visit, where they come from and which sections they read.
• Microsoft Clarity — heatmaps and session recordings. This records how the page was used: mouse movement, scrolling, taps and clicks. Clarity masks the contents of form fields by default, so what you type into the contact or quote form is not captured in a recording.
• Our own page counter — each page you open sends us its address, which page of your visit it is (first, second, third), and the name of the website that linked you here, sent again with each page and tap of that visit so the figures can be grouped by it. When you tap a phone number, WhatsApp, email or a link to another website, we record which kind of tap it was and that website's domain name. With each of these we store the country your request came from, whether you are on a phone, tablet or computer, and the day and hour. When you leave a page we also record how long it was on your screen, how far down it you scrolled, and which page of this site you opened next, if any. We do not store your IP address, give you an identifier or keep a record of a whole visit, so none of it can be traced back to you. It keeps a running page number in your browser's session storage, which is deleted when you close the tab. If your browser sends a Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track signal, nothing is counted at all.
• A small cookie that remembers your earlier visits — part of our own page counter. Our server sets one first-party cookie, __Secure-pa_seen, which your browser sends only to the counter. It holds the date of your first visit, the website that first sent you here, the dates of your last two visits and how many visits you have made: no name, no number that identifies you, and nothing about what you read. We use it only to count how many different browsers visit and come back, and which websites, search engines and AI assistants first send the people who go on to contact us. It lasts 13 months from your first visit and is not extended. It is not set for visitors in the European Union or the European Economic Area, or if your browser sends Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track. Stop counting this browser
• Cloudflare Web Analytics — a simple count of page views and visits. It is cookieless, does not fingerprint your device and does not track you across other websites.

We use these to see which parts of the site are useful and which are confusing. We do not use them to identify you personally.

Your answer is kept in your browser's local storage as telos-consent; we ask again after twelve months if you accepted and after six if you did not. A browser that sends Global Privacy Control is treated as having said no. You can also refuse or delete cookies in your browser settings. You can opt out of Google Analytics using Google's browser add-on. Blocking these tools does not stop you from using the site or contacting us.

5. Who we share it with

We share personal information only with the service providers we need to run the business:

• our hosting and email provider, which stores the site and delivers our mail;
• Resend, which delivers the automatic reply to your enquiry and the website check report and, if our own mail server is down, our notification of it;
• Google PageSpeed Insights, which receives the address of a website you ask us to check;
• Google (Ads and Analytics), Microsoft (Clarity) and Cloudflare (Web Analytics), as described above;
• our accountant and, where the law requires it, SARS or another authority.

Some of these providers process information outside South Africa. Where that happens, we rely on the provider's contractual safeguards as permitted by section 72 of POPIA.

6. How long we keep it

Enquiries that do not become work are kept for up to 24 months, so we can pick up the thread if you come back to us. Client and billing records are kept for five years after the last transaction, as South African tax law requires. Analytics data is kept for the retention period set in each tool, which is currently up to 14 months. Server logs are kept for a short period only.

7. Your rights

Under POPIA you have the right to:

• ask what personal information we hold about you, and get a copy of it;
• ask us to correct anything that is wrong or incomplete;
• ask us to delete information we no longer have good reason to keep — see our data deletion page;
• object to us processing your information, and withdraw consent you have given;
• complain to the Information Regulator.

We will not charge you for a reasonable request, and we will respond as quickly as we can.

The Information Regulator of South Africa can be reached at complaints.IR@justice.gov.za or via inforegulator.org.za.

8. How we protect it

The site is served over HTTPS. Sites we host have SSL and daily backups. Access to enquiry and client records is limited to the people at Telos who need it. No system is perfectly secure, but if a breach ever affected your personal information we would tell you and the Information Regulator, as POPIA requires.

9. Changes to this policy

If we change how we handle personal information we will update this page and the date at the top. Material changes will be pointed out on the website.

10. Contact us