Privacy notice

Who is responsible

The operator of https://www.stuffstolen.co.za is the responsible party for the personal information processed through this site. Contact: admin@stuffstolen.co.za.

What we collect

If you register an account: your first name, surname, e-mail address, contact number, username, a hashed version of your password, the date you accepted these terms, and the IP address you signed up from.

If you list an item: the item's category, make, model, colour, serial number, IMEI, description, the date and place of the theft, and your SAPS case number if you give one.

If you search: the identifier you searched for, your IP address, your browser's user-agent string, and the time. We keep this to stop automated harvesting of contact numbers and to have a record if a listing is later disputed.

We do not sell personal information, and we do not use it for marketing.

Why we are allowed to process it

We process account information to perform the agreement between us (section 11(1)(b) of POPIA). We process listing information and search logs for our legitimate interest, and the legitimate interest of the public, in reducing trade in stolen property (section 11(1)(f)). We publish your contact number only with your express, separate consent (section 11(1)(a)).

What becomes public

When someone searches the exact serial number or IMEI of an item you have listed, the search result shows the item's details, the province and town, the date of the theft, the SAPS case number if you supplied one, and the listing reference.

Your name and e-mail address are never shown.

Your phone number is shown only if you ticked "Contact me if my item is found". That tick is your consent to publish the number to anyone searching that identifier, including people you do not know and cannot vet. You can withdraw it at any time under "My items", and the number disappears from search results immediately. Consider using a second SIM or a WhatsApp-only number rather than your main line.

Someone who finds your number this way may contact you about that item only. Using it for anything else breaches our terms and may breach POPIA and the Consumer Protection Act.

Messages passed between a finder and an owner

Unless you switch it off, a person who searches one of your serial numbers can write to you through a form on this site. We e-mail what they wrote to you and keep a copy under "Messages" in your account.

The sender is not shown your name, your e-mail address or your phone number. You are shown only the contact details the sender chose to type into the form. If they leave both fields blank, neither side learns anything about the other.

We keep the message, the sender's details, their IP address and their browser's user-agent string for 12 months, so that abuse of the form can be traced. Switch messages off on any listing under "My items".

How long we keep it

Listings stay until you withdraw them or close your account. Search logs are kept for 12 months. Account records are kept while your account is open and for 12 months afterwards, then deleted, unless we are required to keep them longer or they relate to an unresolved dispute.

Who else sees it

Our hosting provider stores the data on our behalf. We disclose information to the South African Police Service, a court, or another competent authority where the law requires or permits it. Otherwise we share nothing with anyone.

Your rights

Under POPIA you may ask us to confirm what we hold about you, correct or delete information that is wrong, out of date, excessive or obtained unlawfully, object to processing, and withdraw any consent you gave. Write to admin@stuffstolen.co.za and we will respond within a reasonable time.

If you are not satisfied, you may complain to the Information Regulator (South Africa): inforegulator.org.za.

If a listing about your property is wrong

Use the dispute form. We will look at it and may remove the listing while we do.

Security

Passwords are stored as one-way hashes, never as text. The site is served over HTTPS. Password-reset links are stored as hashes and expire. No system is perfectly secure, and we cannot guarantee that a breach will never happen.

Cookies

We set one cookie, to keep you signed in. It is not used for tracking or advertising. If you load the site's fonts from Google, your browser contacts Google's servers to fetch them.