PRIVACY NOTICE
Plain-English notice under the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA). Last updated 1 October 2026.
Who we are
DC-Dev Studio, Cape Town, South Africa. Responsible party and Information Officer: Craig Falken, info@dcdevstudio.co.za, 074 495 9919.
What we collect and why
| WHEN | WHAT | WHY |
|---|---|---|
| You request an audit or book a call | Name, email and/or phone, your website address, preferred day and time, your message, and any scan scores | To do the audit or call you asked for and reply to you |
| You run the instant site scan | The website address you enter | Sent to Google PageSpeed Insights to produce the scores |
| You chat with BYTE, our site assistant | Your chat messages and a random session ID | To answer your questions and follow up if you ask us to |
| You message or email us | Whatever you send | To reply and, if you become a client, to deliver the work |
| You visit the site | Anonymous, aggregated page statistics (no cookies, no personal profiles) | To see which pages are useful |
To stop abuse of our forms we keep a one-way, salted hash of your IP address for rate limiting. It can't be turned back into your IP address.
Who processes it for us
- Supabase: database for enquiries and chat history
- Resend: sends our email replies
- Anthropic: generates BYTE's chat replies
- Google PageSpeed Insights: runs the site scan
- Plausible Analytics: cookie-free visitor statistics
- Netlify: hosts the website
- WhatsApp (Meta): if you choose to message us there
Some of these providers store data outside South Africa. We only use providers with appropriate safeguards, and only share what each one needs to do its job. We never sell your information.
How long we keep it
Enquiries that don't become projects are deleted within 12 months. Client records are kept for as long as the law requires for tax and accounting. Chat history is deleted within 12 months.
Cookies and storage
We don't use advertising or tracking cookies. Your browser may store a small session value so BYTE remembers your conversation and whether you muted it, until you close the tab.
Your rights
You can ask what we hold about you, ask us to correct or delete it, or object to us using it. Email info@dcdevstudio.co.za and we'll respond within 30 days. If you're not happy with our answer you can complain to the Information Regulator (South Africa) at inforegulator.org.za.
Security
Enquiries are stored in a locked database that only our server functions can access, over encrypted connections.