Privacy, in plain English.

Who we are

Kismet helps small businesses get recommended by AI assistants and put AI to work in their business. For the personal information collected through this website, Kismet is the “responsible party” under POPIA. That means we decide how it’s used and we’re accountable for looking after it.

You can reach us, including our Information Officer, through the start page.

What we collect

When you fill in a form

• Snapshot form: your business name, and an email address or phone number.
• Start form: what you need help with, your business name, your website if you give it, an email address or phone number, and anything you choose to write in the note.

When you ask for a snapshot

We look at public information about your business: your website, business listings, reviews, and what AI assistants say when asked about businesses like yours. This is mostly business information, but it can include personal details, for example if you trade under your own name.

When you visit the site

Our servers briefly use your IP address to stop the forms being misused, for example by limiting repeated submissions. Like most websites, they may also keep short-lived technical logs, such as the time of a request and the type of browser. This site doesn’t use advertising trackers or analytics cookies.

Why we use it

• To reply to you and do what you asked, such as preparing your snapshot or a written plan and price.
• To keep a record of our conversation, so you don’t have to repeat yourself.
• To keep the site and forms secure.

We process this information because you asked us to (your consent), because it’s needed to take steps towards working together, or because we have a legitimate interest in running a secure site. We only collect what we need for these purposes.

Who we share it with

We don’t sell your personal information, and we don’t share it for anyone else’s advertising.

We use a small number of service providers to host and run our website and systems. Under POPIA they’re “operators”: they may only handle your information on our instructions and must keep it secure.

When we prepare a snapshot, we ask AI assistants questions about your business by name. We don’t give them your email address, phone number or note.

We may also share information if the law requires it.

Where it’s kept

Form submissions are stored on servers we run and control. If we ever use a provider that stores information outside South Africa, we will only do so where POPIA allows it, for example where that country or the provider’s agreement with us gives your information a similar level of protection.

How long we keep it

We keep enquiry details for as long as we need them to reply, follow up and keep a sensible record. If we don’t end up working together, we delete them within 12 months of our last contact. If we do work together, we keep what the work and the law require, and the agreement for that work says how long.

You can ask us to delete your details sooner at any time.

How we keep it safe

Information is sent to us over an encrypted connection, access is limited to the people who need it to help you, and we review how we store and protect information as our systems change. If we ever learn that your information has been accessed without permission, we will tell you and the Information Regulator as POPIA requires.

Your rights

Under POPIA you can ask us to:

• tell you whether we hold personal information about you, and give you a copy of it;
• correct information that’s wrong, out of date or incomplete;
• delete information we no longer have a good reason to keep;
• stop using your information, or withdraw your consent, at any time.

We’ll reply as soon as we reasonably can, and we may ask you to confirm who you are first. If you’re unhappy with how we’ve handled your information, please tell us. You also have the right to complain to the Information Regulator of South Africa at inforegulator.org.za.

Marketing

We won’t send you marketing messages unless you’ve agreed to receive them. Every message we send will tell you how to stop them, and stopping is free.

Changes to this notice

If we change how we handle personal information, we’ll update this page first. Once this notice has been reviewed and takes effect, it will show the date it was last updated.

Contact us

For any privacy question or request, use the start page and mention privacy in the note. We’ll get back to you.