Privacy Policy

Last Updated: August 2026

This Notice explains how SparkShop obtains, uses, and discloses personal information, in accordance with the requirements of the Protection of Personal Information Act ("POPIA"). SparkShop is committed to protecting your privacy and ensuring personal information is collected and used properly, lawfully, and transparently.

1. Two Kinds of Data SparkShop Handles

This distinction matters and is worth stating plainly:

• Your account data. Your own contact details, billing information, and usage of SparkShop as our client. For this data, SparkShop is the Responsible Party under POPIA — we decide why and how it's processed, and this Notice describes that processing.
• Your customers' data. The vehicle records, job cards, and customer contact details you enter into SparkShop about your own customers, as part of running your workshop. For this data, SparkShop is an Operator under POPIA — we store and process it on your instruction, but you (the workshop) remain the Responsible Party for your own customers' information, and it is your responsibility to have a lawful basis for collecting and holding it. SparkShop does not use your customers' data for its own purposes (e.g. marketing) beyond providing the service to you.

2. Information We Collect

• Account & billing information: business name, contact details, billing address, and payment information processed via PayStack.
• Usage information: may be collected via standard web analytics (e.g. cookies) to understand how SparkShop is used and improve it.
• Workshop data: the vehicle, job card, invoicing, and customer records you enter as part of using SparkShop — see §1 above for how this differs legally from your own account data.

3. How We Use Your Information

We use personal information only for the purposes for which it was collected, including to: confirm and verify your identity and account (via email confirmation sent through Amazon SES); process billing and subscription payments (via PayStack); provide and improve the SparkShop service; and for audit, record-keeping, and legal compliance purposes.

4. Third Parties We Share Data With

SparkShop uses trusted service providers (sub-processors) to operate: Amazon SES for transactional email delivery, PayStack for payment processing, and our infrastructure/hosting provider. These providers process data strictly to provide their service to SparkShop and are not permitted to use it for their own purposes.

5. Data Retention

• Unconverted trials: if a trial ends without converting to a paid subscription, workshop data is genuinely deleted 30 days after the trial definitively ends (i.e. 30 days after the initial 30-day trial if not extended, or 30 days after the 14-day extension if it was used).
• Cancelled paying clients: if you convert to a paid subscription and later cancel, your data is retained for 90 days after cancellation, then deleted.

6. Data Deletion & Your Rights

You have the right to request a copy of the personal information we hold about you, or to ask us to update, correct, or delete it. To do so, email support@sparkshop.co.za. Upon verification, we will act on your request within 30 days, except where legal retention obligations apply. If SparkShop is an Operator for data about your own customers (see §1), requests relating to that data should generally be directed to you, the workshop, as the Responsible Party — but you can ask us for help fulfilling them at support@sparkshop.co.za.

7. Information Security

We maintain reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect personal information, covering network and application security, secure communications, and monitoring of access to sensitive data.

8. How to Contact Us

If you have questions about this Notice, contact support@sparkshop.co.za.