SALA Innovation Labs (“the Labs”, “we”, “us”) is part of the South African Legacy Association, a registered non-profit company. We handle personal information in line with South Africa’s Protection of Personal Information Act, 4 of 2013 (POPIA).

What we collect

We only collect what you give us through a form on this website:

Membership registration - first name, surname, email address and cell number. Optionally: your institution, LinkedIn profile, profession or field of study, areas of interest, and how you heard about us.
Enquiry forms - your name, email address, optional phone number and organisation, and the content of your message.
Workspace applications - founder and venture name, contact details, venture stage, a description of what you are building, the resources you need and a preferred start date.
Technical information - your IP address and browser user-agent are recorded with form submissions as a record of consent and to help us block automated abuse.

We never ask for sensitive personal information - identity numbers, banking or financial details - on any general form. If a future process genuinely requires it, that will be a separate, legally reviewed flow with its own consent.

Why we collect it

To create and maintain your community membership.
To send you our newsletter and updates, where you have asked for them.
To route your enquiry to the correct person and respond to it.
To assess workspace applications.
To understand, in aggregate, how the site is used so we can improve it.

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it with third parties for their own marketing.

Consent

We ask for your explicit consent when you register, and we record the date, time and IP address at which it was given. You may withdraw consent at any time - see Your rights below. Withdrawing consent does not affect processing that already lawfully took place.

Newsletter and unsubscribing

Every newsletter we send carries a working unsubscribe link. Unsubscribing takes effect immediately and needs no explanation. You can unsubscribe and still keep your membership.

The public directory

Our community directory is opt-in only. It is off unless you explicitly tick the box, and it shows only your name, institution or profession, field of interest and LinkedIn profile - never your email address or phone number. You can remove yourself from it at any time from your member area.

How we store and protect it

All traffic to this website is encrypted in transit over HTTPS/TLS.
Passwords are stored only as a one-way cryptographic hash - we cannot read them, and neither can anyone who obtains the database.
Access to the administration panel is restricted to authorised SALA staff, protected by individual accounts and logged.
Data is hosted in a controlled hosting environment with regular backups.

How long we keep it

We keep membership records for as long as you remain a member, and for 24 months after your last interaction with us, after which inactive records are deleted or anonymised. Enquiry and application records are kept for 36 months so we have a history of our dealings with you, then deleted. If you ask us to delete your information sooner, we will - unless we are legally required to retain it.

Your rights

Under POPIA you have the right to:

Ask what personal information we hold about you, and receive a copy of it.
Ask us to correct anything inaccurate or incomplete.
Ask us to delete your information, or to stop processing it.
Withdraw your consent, including unsubscribing from our newsletter.
Object to processing you believe is unjustified.
Complain to the Information Regulator of South Africa.

To exercise any of these, email us at labs@salaorg.co.za. We will respond within 30 days.

Cookies and analytics

This site sets one essential cookie to keep you signed in and to protect forms against cross-site request forgery. It is required for the site to work and carries no advertising identifier. Where website analytics are enabled, they are used only to understand aggregate traffic patterns.

Changes to this policy

If we change how we handle personal information, we will update this page and change the date at the top. Material changes will be communicated to registered members by email.

Contact us

SALA Innovation Labs
Email: labs@salaorg.co.za
Phone: +27 71 725 2451
Eastern Cape, South Africa