Privacy Policy

1. Who We Are (Responsible Party)

CareerIntel SA is operated by Sabelo Khanyile (trading as CareerIntel SA), based in the Republic of South Africa. We are the "responsible party" as defined under POPIA for the personal information we process.

Contact our Information Officer: privacy@careerintelsa.co.za

2. What Information We Collect

Information you provide directly:

• Name and email address (via Clerk authentication)
• Career profile information: current role, target role, province, skills, education, work experience
• CV documents you upload for analysis
• Chat messages sent to the AI Career Coach
• Payment information (processed by PayFast — we do not store card details)

Information collected automatically:

• Usage data: features accessed, session duration, button clicks
• Technical data: browser type, device type, IP address
• Error logs for debugging and service improvement

3. How We Use Your Information

We process your personal information for the following purposes:

• Providing the service: Personalising AI recommendations, generating skills gap analyses, career path simulations, and CV feedback
• Account management: Creating and maintaining your account, processing subscription payments
• Service improvement: Analysing aggregated (anonymised) usage patterns to improve features
• Communications: Sending service notifications, product updates, and weekly career digests (where you have opted in)
• Legal compliance: Meeting our obligations under POPIA, the ECT Act, and other applicable South African legislation

4. AI Processing of Your Data

Your CV content and career information is processed by AI systems (currently Groq AI with Llama models) to generate personalised insights. This processing occurs on secure servers. We do not use your personal data to train AI models without your explicit consent.

AI-generated insights are stored in our database associated with your account and are accessible only to you.

5. Sharing Your Information

We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal information. We share information only with:

• Clerk: Authentication and user management
• Supabase: Secure database hosting (data stored in EU-Central region)
• Vercel: Application hosting and delivery
• PayFast: Payment processing (they are a licensed SA payment provider)
• Groq AI: AI inference for career coaching features
• Legal authorities: Only when required by South African law or valid court order

6. Data Retention

We retain your personal information for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide services. Specifically:

• Account data: retained until you delete your account
• CV uploads: retained until you delete them or your account
• Chat history: retained for 12 months, then automatically deleted
• Payment records: retained for 5 years as required by SA tax law

7. Your Rights Under POPIA

As a data subject under POPIA, you have the right to:

• Access: Request a copy of the personal information we hold about you
• Correction: Request correction of inaccurate or incomplete information
• Deletion: Request deletion of your personal information (right to be forgotten)
• Objection: Object to the processing of your personal information
• Data portability: Request your data in a machine-readable format
• Complaint: Lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator of South Africa

To exercise these rights, go to Settings → Privacy in the app, or email privacy@careerintelsa.co.za.

We will respond to requests within 30 days as required by POPIA.

8. Security

We implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your personal information, including:

• End-to-end encryption for data in transit (TLS 1.3)
• Encryption at rest for database storage
• Role-based access controls — only you can access your data
• Regular security monitoring and updates

9. Cookies

We use essential cookies for authentication and session management. We do not use advertising or tracking cookies. You can disable non-essential cookies in your browser settings without affecting core functionality.

10. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy to reflect changes in our practices or applicable law. We will notify you of significant changes by email. Continued use of the Platform after notification constitutes acceptance of the updated Policy.

11. PAIA — Promotion of Access to Information Act

In terms of the Promotion of Access to Information Act 2 of 2000 (PAIA), you have the right to request access to records held by CareerIntel SA. To submit a PAIA request, email our Information Officer at privacy@careerintelsa.co.za. A copy of our PAIA manual is available on request.

12. Information Regulator

If you are not satisfied with how we handle your complaint, you may contact the Information Regulator of South Africa: