Privacy Policy

Who is responsible

Padvark.co.za is responsible for the personal information processed through this website.

For any privacy question or request about your personal information, email info@padvark.co.za.

Your right to object (POPIA)

If you are the registered owner of a vehicle shown on Padvark, you have the right to object to the processing of your vehicle's registration number under section 11(3) of POPIA, and to ask for it to be corrected or deleted under section 24.

Email info@padvark.co.za with the registration number, a link to the listing and the details of your dispute, or use the "Report this listing" button on the listing. If a listing is found to contain factual errors, or the underlying matter has been officially resolved, we will promptly redact or remove it through our removal process.

What we collect

When you create an account: your email address, a username, your password (stored only as a secure hash), your preferred language and the date you joined.

When you sign in with Google: Google tells us your email address and that Google has confirmed it. We ask Google for nothing else, so we never receive your name, photo or contacts. We store the address, a Google account number that links your sign-ins to your Padvark account, and nothing more. Google's own privacy policy covers what happens on Google's side.

When you submit a report: the vehicle details (number plate, make, model, colour and type), the offence, the description, the place and time of the incident, and your photos and video.

When you report a listing: the reason, the details you give and your email address, so that a moderator can reply.

When you use the site: your IP address (for security and to prevent abuse, for example by limiting repeated attempts), the cookies described below and, through Google Analytics and Ahrefs Web Analytics, which pages you visit, how you arrived, your type of device and browser and your approximate location (such as your city).

When you turn on notifications: the push address and keys your browser gives us for that phone or browser, a label such as "iPhone · Safari", and the provinces and kinds of notifications you chose. We send only your report's status and the weather warnings you chose. The address is deleted when you turn notifications off, when you log out on that phone or browser, when the browser tells us it is no longer valid, or with your account.

When you open the installed app while logged in: the kind of device and browser (for example "iPhone · Safari"), a random device number the app keeps on that phone or computer, and when you first and last opened the app there. We keep it for up to 10 devices and delete it with your account.

To count how often an incident is viewed, we briefly keep a scrambled code made from your IP address, so that one visitor counts once. The code cannot be turned back into your IP address and is deleted after 30 minutes; only the total number of views is stored.

We never ask for your ID number, and we don't use advertising cookies.

Why we use it

• to run your account and let you log in;
• to review, publish and manage reports;
• to email you about your account and your reports;
• to deal with reports and removal requests about listings;
• to protect the site against abuse, spam and attacks;
• to see how the site is used, so that we can improve it;
• to comply with the law.

We rely on your consent, on the performance of our agreement with you (the Terms of Use), and on our legitimate interest in running and improving a safe community website.

Why we may show vehicle registration numbers

Under section 11(1)(f) of POPIA, Padvark processes vehicle registration numbers without the owner's prior consent, based on the legitimate interest of the public and road users in raising road safety awareness, documenting reckless driving and having a secure civic platform where they can compile visual evidence to report it to the traffic authorities.

To keep this processing proportional and balanced against individual privacy rights:

• we remove all metadata (such as EXIF GPS locations) from uploaded photos;
• we don't publish the faces of vehicle occupants or bystanders, or private information such as names or home addresses: moderators reject or blur content that shows them;
• we don't offer any lookup that links a registration number to a driver's or owner's name, ID number or address, and nobody can use this site to get private ownership information;
• the site gives members tools to share their reports with official road traffic authorities, such as the RTMC and Arrive Alive, to help with law enforcement.

What is public

Only your username appears publicly: next to your published reports and on your profile page, together with the month you joined and the number of published reports. Your email address is never shown.

Published reports show the vehicle, its number plate, the photos, the video and the description. Number plates identify vehicles, not people, but we treat them with care: faces are never shown, and vehicle owners can dispute a listing.

Photos and videos

Photos often contain hidden information, such as the GPS location where they were taken and details of the device. We remove all of this metadata from every photo before anything is published.

Reporters do not upload videos to Padvark: a report links to a video the reporter posted on YouTube themselves, under YouTube's own privacy terms. With the reporter's permission, given when they submit the report, our moderators may download a copy of the video to our server, publish it on Padvark's own YouTube channel and show that copy on the listing instead. The downloaded file is only available to moderators and is deleted automatically after 24 hours.

Who we share it with

We don't sell personal information. We share it only with service providers that help us run Padvark, and only as far as needed:

• our hosting provider, whose servers in the European Union run the site and store its data;
• our email provider, to send you emails;
• Google, if you sign in with a Google account: it tells us your email address and that it is verified, and nothing else;
• YouTube (Google), which hosts linked videos and the copies we publish on Padvark's channel. A video only loads from youtube-nocookie.com when a visitor presses play, and we never share your account details with YouTube;
• Google Analytics (Google), which shows us how visitors use the site, such as which pages are viewed and how often. We have switched off Google's advertising features, so this information isn't used to show you ads;
• Ahrefs Web Analytics (Ahrefs), which counts visits and shows us which pages are viewed and how visitors found the site. It does not use cookies;
• TomTom, whose traffic data our server fetches for the traffic pages. No information about you is sent to TomTom;
• the South African Weather Service, whose public weather warnings our server reads. No information about you is sent;
• Waze (Google), whose live map on the traffic pages loads only when you click "Show live map". Google then receives your IP address and may set its own cookies;
• Telegram, which delivers alerts to our staff about new reports and reported listings. An alert can include the listing's details and the text of a report, but never a reporter's email address;
• the push service of your browser's maker (Google for Chrome and Android, Apple for Safari and iPhone, Mozilla for Firefox), which delivers notifications you turned on. A notification contains only its title, a short text and a link on Padvark;
• an AI translation service (currently OpenRouter, OpenAI, Anthropic or Google, depending on our settings), which receives the "What happened" text of approved reports to translate it between English and Afrikaans, and road traffic facts (road and place names, speeds, incidents and weather warnings; no personal data) to write the traffic summaries. It receives nothing else: no username, email address or photos;
• Cloudflare Turnstile, which checks that forms are filled in by a person.

We may also disclose information when the law requires it, for example in response to a valid court order.

Partner logos at the bottom of our pages are paid advertising. When you click one, Padvark counts the click before sending you to the partner's website. As with view counts, we briefly keep a scrambled code made from your IP address so that one visitor counts once; it is deleted after 30 minutes, and only the number of clicks per partner per day is kept. Partners only receive those totals. Partners have no say over reports, and showing a partner's logo is not an endorsement of the partner.

Where your information is stored

Padvark's servers are in the European Union. The site's database, the photos, temporary video downloads and our backups are all stored there. In the EU, personal information is protected by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which gives protection substantially similar to POPIA.

Cloudflare Turnstile, Google Analytics, Ahrefs Web Analytics, TomTom, Waze (Google), YouTube, Telegram (for our staff alerts) and the translation service are international services and may process the information they receive, such as your IP address, outside South Africa.

How long we keep it

• Account information: until you delete your account.
• Published reports: for as long as they are live. If you delete your account, your published reports stay online but are shown as "Anonymous".
• Pending submissions and their files: deleted when you delete your account.
• Rejected reports: kept, together with the moderator's decision, until you delete your account.
• Reports about listings: for as long as needed to deal with them and to keep a record of moderation decisions.
• Downloaded video copies: deleted automatically 24 hours after the download, or straight away if the listing is rejected or removed. A copy published on Padvark's YouTube channel is removed when the listing is removed.
• Analytics data: kept by Google Analytics for at most 14 months.
• View counts: only the number of views per incident. The scrambled code used to count each visitor once is deleted after 30 minutes.
• Partner clicks: only the number of clicks per partner per day. The scrambled code used to count each visitor once is deleted after 30 minutes.
• Backups: database backups and photo backups are kept for 7 days.
• If you register but never confirm your email address, we remind you after 3 days and remove the account 4 days after that.

Security

We protect personal information with reasonable technical and organisational measures, including encrypted connections (HTTPS), hashed passwords, access limited to moderators and administrators, and regular backups.

Your rights

Under POPIA you have the right to:

• ask whether we hold personal information about you, and for a copy of it;
• ask us to correct or delete it;
• object to the processing of your personal information;
• withdraw your consent at any time;
• lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator (inforegulator.org.za).

You can change your username and delete your account yourself in your account settings. For anything else, email info@padvark.co.za.

If your vehicle appears on Padvark

If you own a vehicle in a listing and believe the listing is wrong, use the "Report this listing" button and choose "I am the vehicle owner and want to dispute this", or read about removal requests.

Cookies

Padvark uses a few cookies: a session cookie that keeps you logged in, a cookie that remembers your language, and Google Analytics cookies (their names start with _ga) that count visits and show us how the site is used. Cloudflare Turnstile may set a cookie to check that you are a person. We don't use advertising cookies.

When you first visit, a notice at the bottom of the page tells you about these cookies and about Google Analytics. Dismissing it stores one more cookie (padvark_cookie_notice) for a year, so the notice does not come back. It records only that you have seen the notice; it does not change what is collected. Two more cookies remember your choices: padvark_cookie_notice, so the notice does not come back, and padvark_theme, which records whether you chose the dark theme. Neither says anything about you.

You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings. If you block Google Analytics, for example with Google's opt-out add-on (tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout), the site still works as usual.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy. The latest version is always on this page, and we will tell registered users about important changes by email.