What we do with your information.

Who holds your information

The Independents, a registered party of independent candidates contesting Enoch Mgijima Local Municipality (EC139) in the Chris Hani District, Eastern Cape. We are the responsible party for the information described here.

Registered address: 1 Arkwright Road, Queenstown, 5320

Information Officer: Debbie Stellenberg, info@theindependents.org.za

What we collect, and why

Only what we actually use, and only from you directly, when you fill in a form on this site. There are two, for two different purposes: becoming a member, described in the next section, and receiving campaign updates by SMS, described here.

Your name

So that a message from us reads like it comes from people, not from a database.

Your mobile number

So that we can send you campaign updates by SMS. We chose text messages deliberately: a text costs you a fraction of what a video costs in prepaid data.

Your ward, or the area you live in (optional)

So that what we send you is about your part of the municipality rather than somewhere you have never been. You can leave it blank.

The date you agreed, and the version of this notice

So that we can show exactly what you were told at the time you agreed. This protects you, not us.

Two different things, kept separate

Campaign updates. Telling you what The Independents are doing, and asking for your vote, is canvassing. Under POPIA that is not direct marketing, and it does not need your prior consent — but we ask for it anyway, because we would rather text people who want to hear from us.

Asking you to donate. That is direct marketing under section 69, and the law is stricter about it. We will only ask you for money if you ticked the separate box that says so, and if you did, the law allows us one approach — not a campaign of them. If you leave that box unticked we will never ask you for money.

The two are separate tick boxes on the form and separate records in our system. Neither one is ticked for you in advance.

If you become a member

When you join through our membership form, you go onto the party’s membership register. Your ward candidate and the party’s organisers use it to contact members about party activities in their ward: meetings, volunteering and campaign news, by phone, SMS or email.

Your name and cellphone number

So that your ward candidate knows who you are and can reach you.

Your email address (optional)

A second way to reach you, if you would like one.

Your ward, and optionally your town and voting station

So that you are on the list of the candidate for your ward, and they can tell you about things near you.

The year you were born (optional)

So that we can see whether we are reaching people of every age. We never ask for your ID number or your full date of birth.

How you would like to take part

Volunteering, sharing our news, standing as a candidate: so that we ask you for the things you offered, and not for the things you did not.

When you accepted the membership terms and this notice, and which version of it

So that we can show what you were told when you joined.

How long we keep it. For as long as you are a member: until you cancel your membership, or until 5 November 2027 at the latest. Membership records are not deleted the day after the election the way campaign SMS records are, because membership of the party does not end with the election.

Leaving. You can cancel at any time, free of charge, with the cancel membership form or by emailing info@theindependents.org.za. We then delete your membership record. We keep a note that your request was carried out, with your name and the date but nothing that can be used to contact you, for one year, so that we can show we did it.

You do not have to give us anything

Giving us your details is entirely voluntary. If you would rather not, nothing happens to you: your right to vote, to attend a meeting, or to speak to a candidate is completely unaffected. The only consequence is that we will not be able to send you updates.

We have never bought, and will never buy, a contact list. Under POPIA that is prohibited outright. If you are hearing from us, it is because you typed your number into this site yourself.

How long we keep campaign SMS records

Until 5 November 2026, the day after the local government election of 4 November 2026. Everything we hold about you is then deleted.

That is not a promise we intend to keep by remembering. Every record carries its own deletion date, and the job that deletes them was built at the same time as the form that collects them.

Who else sees it

SME Connect Solutions builds and runs this site and the messaging behind it, and processes your information on the party’s behalf. In POPIA terms they are an operator, and section 21 requires that arrangement to be in writing before any processing starts. That written agreement is in place.

Your ward candidate and the party’s organisers see the details of members in the wards they work in, in order to contact them.

A bulk SMS provider delivers the text messages. They receive your number in order to deliver a message and for no other purpose.

That is the whole list. We do not sell your details, we do not swap them with other parties or candidates, and we do not hand them to anyone for their own purposes.

Where your information is stored

On managed database servers in Ireland, in the European Union. This means your information leaves South Africa, and POPIA section 72 requires us to say so.

EU data protection law (the GDPR) applies to it there, which gives it a level of protection comparable to POPIA’s. We use servers in the EU because there is no South African hosting region available from our database provider.

Our Facebook Page, and the app behind it

We publish to The Independents’ Facebook Page through an app called The Independents Dashboard. Only the campaign’s own team uses it. It does two things: it puts our posts and our paid adverts on our Page, and it reads how they performed.

What it reads is totals for our own posts: how many people saw a post, and how many reactions, comments and shares it got. It does not read who reacted or commented. It does not read your profile. It does not offer “Log in with Facebook”, so it never receives information about you as a Facebook user.

When we choose who sees an advert, we choose broad groups, such as an area of the municipality and an age range. Meta does the matching, and we never receive a list of the people who saw it. Our adverts are about an election, so Meta shows a “Paid for by The Independents” label on each one and keeps a public copy in its Ad Library.

What Meta itself does with your information on Facebook is covered by Meta’s privacy policy, not by this notice.

Your rights

You can, at any time and free of charge:

Ask what we hold about you

And we will tell you.

Correct anything that is wrong

A misspelled name or an old number.

Ask us to delete it

We will, and you do not have to give a reason.

Object to us using it

On reasonable grounds relating to your situation.

Stop the messages

Every SMS we send carries a way to opt out, and it costs you nothing to use. You can also just reply and tell us to stop.

To do any of these, email our Information Officer at info@theindependents.org.za. If you are a member and want your membership cancelled and your information deleted, you can also use the cancel membership form.

If you are not satisfied with how we have handled your information, you have the right to complain to the Information Regulator (South Africa), the public body that enforces POPIA. Email POPIAComplaints@inforegulator.org.za, call 010 023 5200 or 0800 017 160 (toll-free), or write to Woodmead North Office Park, 54 Maxwell Drive, Woodmead, Johannesburg, 2191. These are the details on inforegulator.org.za as of 30 September 2026.

How to have your information deleted

You can ask us to delete what we hold about you at any time, free of charge, and you do not have to give a reason. That includes anything that reached us through Facebook, such as a message you sent our Page.

1. Email our Information Officer at info@theindependents.org.za with the subject “Delete my information”.
2. Tell us the name and cellphone number you gave us, so that we can find your record.
3. If you are a member, you can use the cancel membership form instead.

We delete your details and let you know once it is done. We keep only a note that your request was carried out, with your name and the date but nothing that can be used to contact you, for one year, so that we can show we did it. Campaign SMS records are deleted on 5 November 2026 in any case.

A comment or reaction you left on one of our Facebook posts is yours to remove, and you can delete it on Facebook yourself at any time. Our app never stored it: it only counts how many there are.