Privacy Policy

In light of various changes to laws abroad and upcoming local laws globally relating to the protection of personal information, we have made various changes to our website, our privacy policy and the access to information we provide to registered users. In order to comply with all local and international laws, we removed various sets of information and restricted access to others, to fall within the ambit of these laws and ensure we act accordingly.

We take our responsibility to safeguard personal information very seriously. This privacy policy sets out the way in which we will process personal information collected or submitted to our website and interactive services, collectively referred to as the "Platform". It outlines the data we collect, how we use it, how we protect personal data, and your rights regarding the personal information we may hold on you.

2.1 Visitors or users

This covers visitors or users of the Platform contacting us via our online contact form or directly via our email address, as well as users signing up with us in order to conduct historical research.

When contacting us, we require users to provide a name, surname, email address and phone number. This information is used only to reply to communications received or to make contact with the person contacting us. It is accessed only by our online support staff, who are responsible for attending to user queries. Once the query has been dealt with, this information is deleted from our system and can no longer be accessed.

When a user signs up for an account with us, we require a name, surname, phone number and email address. This information is required to identify the user accessing and using our services. It also enables our automatic system to create a member account and send access confirmation to the user when the registration process is completed. We may also use this information to contact the user about any problems experienced with usage of the account.

Our system automatically logs all member IP addresses, which are associated with every member for legal purposes should the need arise. IP addresses also allow us to exercise maximum security on our system and identify any potential misuse of login information. This information can only be accessed by our support, management and IT staff in the event a problem should arise on the account, and will be kept safely secured for as long as the member remains an active user of our services.

As part of our security implementations and to control who accesses information on our services, we also log all search history conducted by users. All search terms are logged against user accounts.

2.2 Registered volunteers or staff

This covers registered volunteers or staff assisting with data transcription or the contribution of information.

When joining us as a registered volunteer or staff member, we collect information such as names, surname, identity number, phone number, employment information, addresses, email addresses and family reference information. This information is used only by our management to confirm the identities of staff or volunteers who will be working on sensitive data on our project. It is kept offline and is accessible only by the management of GenDatabase.com.

2.3 Record subjects

You may be a record subject on whom data was collected from public sources and included in our databases.

We collect and process publicly available documents released by the South African Government or church groups, either on online platforms or via services such as the LDS project on FamilySearch.org. These documents consist of marriage certificates, death notices, baptism records and other historical documents. Although these documents may contain information such as identity numbers, names and surnames, address information and more, we only collect the information necessary for the purposes of genealogy research and historical and statistical reasons. This includes only names, surnames, dates of birth, spouse and children's names and dates of birth, and area information where available. To protect the personal information of record subjects, we do not keep or make available any other information that appears on these publicly accessible records.

Please note that we do not collect personal information on any data subjects outside South Africa. Our purpose is to collect genealogy information on South African nationals from public sources. If you hold dual nationality, or obtain such nationality or citizenship at any point in time, we consider your information as being that of a South African, as it was mentioned and released in Government and church records.

We consider it legal, in terms of local and international laws, to process this information for research purposes, including statistical and historic purposes. This information is also made available in the public interest. However, if you find this information causing you distress, please contact us with immediate effect at info@gendatabase.com or via our contact form. We may require you to provide proof of identity and further information on why you consider the information to be causing distress.

Should you come across any inaccurate information, please contact us at info@gendatabase.com. We accept that transcription errors may occur and will evaluate all requests for correcting information. Please note that if there were errors in the original document, we will not be in a position to correct that information, as our intention is to properly record historic data on our system. In these events, we may add notes to inform researchers using our system of the possible error.

GenDatabase.com will never make use of newsletters, in either printed or electronic form, to members. We may, however, need to contact users of our system in relation to activities on their accounts. These communications include email notifications on account registration, expiry and renewal requests. Furthermore, we may send email correspondence to users when we identify any problems with the usage of the account registered with us.

These notifications are mandatory and cannot be cancelled. They are designed to ensure that you gain access to your account when signing up with us, to protect your account, and to communicate with you only when needed.

GenDatabase.com will not, without your consent, ever make your personal information available to any third party, with the following exceptions:

1. where our business is acquired by a third party who agrees to our already-determined privacy policy; or
2. where we are under legal obligation to disclose information to law enforcement agencies around the world, either for the purposes of investigations or in order to enforce our terms and legal agreements.

GenDatabase.com will never sell or share your personal data with third-party organisations for any reason whatsoever.

We will, at all times, use all reasonable technical and organisational precautions to prevent the loss, misuse or alteration of the personal data we collect. Our systems will always be equipped with the necessary security software and monitoring services to ensure the protection of data. In addition, we maintain internal protection over information and data, with only authorised staff with the required clearance able to access and deal with the information.

GenDatabase.com does not make use of external data processors in storing or processing any personal information we collect. All information is received by GenDatabase.com, processed by GenDatabase.com and stored on our own secure servers. All data is collected by GenDatabase.com and accessed and processed only by authorised staff members appointed by GenDatabase.com. GenDatabase.com remains solely responsible for the protection of data received.

We only keep personal information for as long as legally necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it was collected. We also have a responsibility to fulfil other legal, accounting and reporting requirements, which means we may have a legal obligation to store certain data sets for longer periods of time. Other than this, data will be destroyed and deleted from our systems when no longer required.

It may be required of us to transfer certain information cross-border, such as when you register a new account and make payment via payment processing services like PayPal in the United States. In these events, we ensure that all information is transferred using secure encryption technology to our payment solution provider. These technologies are aimed at protecting the information we transfer cross-border.

When registering with us and making payment to activate your account, we make use of third-party websites and systems. We may also provide links on our own website to third-party websites related to genealogy research. We cannot accept responsibility for any issues concerning your data collected by websites that are not directly under our control. Please also be aware that individual organisations operate their own policies regarding the use and sale of personal data and the use of cookies. If you have a concern regarding the way your personal data will be used on other sites, you are advised to read the relevant privacy statement on their sites.

Please note that we make use of Google advertising on our website. When visiting our site, you will see adverts originating from Google on most pages. If you have chosen to enable Google to associate your web and app browsing history with your Google account, and to use information from your Google account to personalise ads, Google Analytics will collect Google-authenticated identifiers associated with your Google account (and therefore, personal information).

Please note that we may make continuous changes to our privacy policy in order to ensure that we offer the best protection in securing your personal information. You are free to visit this page at any time. We will also draw your attention to any new changes to this policy throughout our website when you visit.

Due to the total collapse of South African postal services and the unavailability of postal boxes, all legal correspondence can only be sent to us in digital format, to info@gendatabase.com or via our contact form.