Privacy Policy

1. Information we collect

We collect only the information necessary to provide, secure, and improve the Service. The categories of personal information we collect are described in detail below.

1.1 Account information

When you register with an email address and password, we collect your full name and email address. This information forms your user profile and is used to identify you across sessions, send you service notifications (including payment confirmations, security alerts, and responses to your support requests), attribute designs and subscription billing to your account, and display your name on designs and comments you author. Your email address also serves as your login identifier.

1.2 Google sign-in data

If you choose to sign in with Google, we receive the basic profile information Google makes available through its sign-in flow — namely your name and email address as returned by Google's authentication service. We request only the openid, profile and email scopes, which together provide your name and email and no other Google account data.

We do not request, access, or read your Google Contacts, Google Drive files, Gmail messages, Google Calendar, Google Photos, Google Sheets, Google Analytics, YouTube data, Chrome data, or any other Google service data. We use the Google-provided name and email solely to create and authenticate your VisionPlan Pro account. We do not store your Google password, and we do not retain the Google authentication token beyond the active sign-in session.

You may revoke our access to your Google basic profile information at any time through your Google account security settings (https://myaccount.google.com/permissions), which will prevent future sign-in with Google. Your VisionPlan Pro account and stored designs are unaffected if you sign in with email and password thereafter. The use of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. We do not transfer Google API data to any third party except as necessary to provide the Service to you, and we do not use Google API data for advertising.

1.3 Design data

When you create or edit a design we store the site plans and floor plans you upload (as images or PDFs), camera placements and specifications (model number, mounting type, height, tilt, rotation, focal length, target height, viewing distance), network switch placements and specifications, recorder (NVR/DVR) placements and specifications (including hard-drive capacities and retention settings), wall and cable tray layouts (with physical dimensions and quantities), device accessories and their product codes, branding assets (company name and logo), and configuration choices (scale, icon size, wall thickness). This also includes any text labels, annotations, callout notes, and comments you or your collaborators add to a design, plus multi-floor layouts per design.

1.4 File uploads and logos

Files you upload — site plans (PDF, PNG, JPG, etc.), company logos for branded PDF exports, and reseller verification documents (applicant ID copies, company registration certificates for company applicants) — are stored so you can continue editing and produce PDF and Excel bill-of-quantities exports, and so we can verify reseller applicants. Reseller verification documents are used solely for due diligence and payout verification and are never displayed publicly or shared with other users.

1.5 Usage and technical data

We collect basic product-analytics events — sign-ups, designs created, and subscription activations — to measure adoption and improve the Service. These events are stored in aggregate, non-identifiable form and are not linked to your individual design content. We also collect standard technical information such as browser type and version, operating system, screen resolution, IP address (used only transiently for security and session management), device session identifiers, and approximate access times. This is used to enforce the single active-device session policy per licensed user, diagnose errors, and maintain service availability. We do not use this data to build a behavioural profile of you, to track you across other websites, or to serve targeted advertising.

1.6 Log data

When you use the Service, our servers automatically record log information that may include your IP address, the date and time of each request, the URL requested, the referring URL, your browser user-agent string, and response status. Log data is used for security, fraud prevention, abuse detection, and troubleshooting, and is retained for a limited period consistent with those purposes before being aggregated or deleted.

1.7 Reseller and referral data

If you apply to our reseller program we collect your company or trading name, applicant type (individual or company), official company email, day-to-day contact email, phone number, registered physical address, applicant ID document, company registration document (for company applicants), and bank account details (account name, bank name, account number, and branch code) needed for commission payouts. If you use a referral or discount code at checkout, we record which code was used, the amount of the discount applied, and link it to the referring reseller for commission accounting. If you are referred by a reseller, we record your email and the referring reseller code so the reseller's commission can be calculated.

1.8 Payment information

Subscription payments and reseller commission payouts are processed by Paystack. We do not collect, receive, or store your card number, cardholder name, CVV, card expiry, or any other sensitive card details. These are captured directly by Paystack on its own secure, PCI-DSS compliant payment pages and are subject to Paystack's privacy policy. We store only the payment reference returned by Paystack, the plan purchased, the amount paid, the payment status, and the transaction date — the minimum needed to manage your subscription, issue invoices and receipts, apply discounts, and account for reseller commission.

1.9 Cookies and local storage

The Service uses essential cookies and browser local storage to keep you signed in, remember your active session, maintain the single active-device restriction, store your in-progress but unsaved design edits, and preserve user-interface preferences (such as the last-used floor or tool). We do not use advertising, marketing, social, or third-party tracking cookies, and we do not sell cookie-based data to anyone. When you log out, session identifiers are cleared from your browser. You can clear cookies and local storage at any time through your browser settings, although doing so will sign you out and discard any unsaved in-browser design state.

2. How we use your information

We use each category of information only for the following specific, documented purposes, and for no other purpose without your consent except where required by law:

• Account creation and authentication — using your name, email, and (when chosen) your Google basic profile returned by the Google sign-in flow, to create your account, verify your email address, and keep you signed in.
• Provision of the Service — using your designs, uploads, and configuration to render your plan images and PDFs, compute camera coverage and DORI zones, model storage and network requirements, generate PDF design drawings and Excel bills of quantities, look up manufacturer specifications for cameras, switches, and recorders, and persist your work between sessions.
• Collaboration — using the email addresses of collaborators you invite to grant them view or comment access to a shared design, and to display the author name, email, and comment text on comments they leave.
• Subscription billing — using payment references and plan details to process recurring payments, issue receipts, manage renewals and cancellations, validate and apply discount or referral codes, and (where applicable) calculate reseller commission on your payment.
• Reseller program — using reseller applicant identity documents, bank account details, and business information to verify identity, pay out earned commission to the bank account provided, attribute referred customers, and maintain required financial records.
• Security, fraud prevention, and abuse detection — using device session identifiers, IP address, and log data to enforce the single active-device policy, detect unauthorised access, prevent payment fraud and abuse of free trials, and investigate service misuse.
• Service communications — using your email address to send payment confirmations, subscription status changes, security alerts, password-reset and OTP verification messages, and responses to your support requests.
• Product improvement — using aggregated, anonymised analytics events to understand feature usage, diagnose reliability issues, and improve the Service. We do not use your personally identifiable data for this purpose.
• Legal compliance — using information as required to meet our obligations under South African law, including POPIA, the Companies Act, the Tax Administration Act, and applicable financial regulations governing commission payouts.

We do not use your information to make automated decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects on you, we do not sell your personal data to any third party, and we do not use personal data for advertising of any kind.

3. Use of Google API data

VisionPlan Pro integrates Google Sign-In to allow you to authenticate using your Google account. The integration is used solely for authentication: we receive your name and email address from Google when you sign in, and we use them to create or match your VisionPlan Pro account. We do not use Google API data for any other purpose.

In particular, in connection with Google API data we:

• Request only the openid, profile, and email scopes — the minimum needed to identify you.
• Do not request, access, or use any other Google API or scope.
• Do not transfer Google API data to any third party except as strictly necessary to authenticate you to the Service (for example, our hosting provider processes the sign-in request on our behalf).
• Do not use Google API data for advertising or for serving personalised content.
• Do not use Google API data to train or improve any machine-learning model.
• Do not retain Google authentication tokens beyond the active sign-in session.
• Allow you to revoke our access at any time from your Google account security settings, after which Google basic profile information will no longer be used to sign you in.

Our use of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including its Limited Use requirements.

4. Legal basis for processing

We process your personal information on the following lawful bases under the Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013 (POPIA), South Africa:

• Performance of a contract — to deliver the Service you requested when you register and subscribe, including rendering designs, computing coverage, producing exports, and managing billing.
• Legitimate interests — to operate, secure, and improve the Service; enforce the single active-device policy; prevent fraud and abuse; and maintain audit logs.
• Consent — for Google sign-in, where you consent to share your Google basic profile when you choose that sign-in method; and for any optional marketing communications you explicitly opt into.
• Legal obligation — to meet our obligations under South African law, including tax record-keeping and financial regulations applicable to reseller commission payouts.

Where we rely on consent, you may withdraw it at any time without affecting the lawfulness of processing carried out before withdrawal. Withdrawing consent for Google sign-in does not delete your VisionPlan Pro account; you can continue to sign in with your email and password.

5. Sharing of your information

We do not sell your personal data, and we do not rent it to third parties. Your designs, uploads, and project data are visible only to you and to the collaborators you explicitly share them with by email, at the access level (view-only or view-and-comment) you choose. We share information only with the following categories of recipients, each bound to use it only to provide the service we have engaged them for:

• Google — to provide Google sign-in authentication. Google processes your sign-in and returns your basic profile (name and email) to us. Google's handling of your data during sign-in is governed by Google's own privacy policy at https://policies.google.com/privacy. We receive only the name and email that Google returns; we do not receive any other data from Google.
• Paystack — our payment processor, to handle subscription billing, refunds, and reseller commission payouts. Paystack collects and processes your card details directly on its own secure pages; we never see or store them. Paystack's handling of payment data is governed by Paystack's privacy policy at https://paystack.com/privacy.
• Hosting and infrastructure providers — to host and operate the Service, including storing your designs and uploads and running the application. These providers process data only on our instructions and under their own data-protection terms.
• Service providers and subprocessors — acting on our behalf to deliver email delivery, error monitoring, and product analytics. They access only the minimum data needed to perform those functions and may not use it for any other purpose.
• Collaborators you invite — when you share a design by email, the name, email, and comment text of invited collaborators are stored with the design so they can view or comment at the access level you chose.
• Resellers you are referred by — if you sign up using a reseller referral link, we share with that reseller the fact that you were referred, your email, and the commission earned on your payments, so the reseller can verify their commission. We do not share your design content, payment card details, or any other personal data with resellers.

We may also disclose information where required to do so by law, by a court order or other lawful request from a competent authority, or to protect the rights, property, or safety of VisionPlan Pro, our users, or others. We will only disclose the minimum information necessary to comply with such a request, and where permitted we will inform you of the request unless we are legally prohibited from doing so.

6. Third-party services and links

The Service contains links to third-party websites and integrates with third-party services for specific functions. When you follow a link to another website, you are subject to that website's privacy policy, which we encourage you to read. The third-party services we use and the purpose each serves are:

• Google Sign-In (https://policies.google.com/privacy) — authentication only; returns your name and email.
• Paystack (https://paystack.com/privacy) — payment and payout processing.
• Hosting and database infrastructure — operated by our platform provider under data-processing terms.
• Email delivery providers — used to send transactional and service emails.
• Error monitoring and logging tools — used to diagnose and fix faults; receive only error metadata, never your design content.
• Product analytics — receives only aggregate, non-identifiable event counts.

We do not allow third parties to use your personal information for their own marketing purposes, and we do not permit third-party advertising networks to operate on the Service.

7. Data retention

We retain your personal information only for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes described in this policy, unless a longer retention period is required by law:

• Account data — retained for as long as your account is active. If you request account closure, your name, email, and profile data are deleted within 30 days of your request.
• Design data and uploads — retained for as long as your account is active. After a subscription is cancelled, designs and uploads are retained for a grace period of 30 days and then removed through our cancelled-account cleanup process.
• Google sign-in data — the name and email returned by Google are stored as part of your profile for the lifetime of your account. We do not retain the Google authentication token beyond the active session.
• Payment records — retained for the period required by South African tax law (typically five years) after the relevant transaction, after which they are deleted or anonymised.
• Reseller data — retained for as long as the reseller relationship is active, and for the period required to satisfy financial record-keeping obligations for commission payouts (typically five years).
• Log data — retained for up to 90 days for security and troubleshooting, then aggregated or deleted.
• Analytics events — retained in aggregate, non-identifiable form for as long as useful for product improvement.
• Session and technical data — session identifiers are cleared on logout; device session records are retained only for as long as needed to enforce the single active-device policy for your account.

You may request earlier deletion of your account and associated data at any time by contacting us using the details in section 11 below.

8. Security

We use reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect your data, including:

• Authenticated access controls — every request is validated against your account and design ownership.
• Encrypted transmission — all data exchanged with the Service is sent over HTTPS (TLS).
• Single active-device session policy — to prevent unauthorised account sharing.
• Row-level access controls — designs are only readable by their owner and the collaborators explicitly invited to them at the access level the owner chose.
• Least-privilege service providers — third parties we rely on receive only the minimum data needed to perform their function.
• Secrets management — API keys, payment credentials, and other secrets are stored server-side and never exposed to the browser.
• Periodic review — we periodically review our access logs and security configuration.

However, no method of transmission over the internet or electronic storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security. In the event of a confirmed personal data breach affecting your rights, we will notify you and the relevant regulator (the Information Regulator, South Africa) as required by POPIA, and will take reasonable steps to mitigate any harm.

9. International data transfers

The Service is operated from South Africa, but our hosting and third-party service providers (including Google and Paystack) may process data in other countries. When your data is transferred outside South Africa, we do so under the safeguards provided by the service agreements we have in place and in accordance with POPIA's conditions for the cross-border transfer of personal information. By using the Service you acknowledge that your information may be processed in countries outside South Africa whose data-protection laws may differ from those in South Africa, and that we rely on the safeguards described here to protect your data in those transfers.

10. Children's privacy

The Service is a professional design tool intended for businesses and qualified security-system professionals. It is not directed at children, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under the age of 18. If you believe we have collected information from a child under 18, please contact us using the details in section 11 and we will take steps to delete that information as soon as reasonably possible.

11. Your rights

Under POPIA and applicable data-protection law, you have the following rights over your personal information:

• Access — request a copy of the personal information we hold about you.
• Rectification — correct inaccurate or incomplete personal information.
• Deletion — request deletion of your personal data, subject to legal retention requirements (see section 7).
• Data portability — receive an export of your designs and associated data in a machine-readable format.
• Withdrawal of consent — withdraw consent to processing where consent is the basis, including Google sign-in.
• Objection and restriction — object to or restrict certain processing of your personal information.
• Complaint — lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator (South Africa) at https://inforegulator.org.za if you believe we have not handled your data in accordance with POPIA.

To exercise any of these rights, contact us using the details in section 12 below. We will respond within a reasonable timeframe — typically within 30 days — as required by POPIA. We will not charge you a fee for exercising these rights unless your request is manifestly unfounded or excessive.

12. Account deletion

You can delete your account and associated data at any time. To do so, contact us using the details in section 13 and request account deletion. On receiving your request we will:

• Mark your account for deletion and prevent further sign-in.
• Permanently delete your designs, uploads, branding assets, and configuration within 30 days.
• Delete your name, email, and profile data within 30 days.
• Retain only the payment and tax records required by South African law, anonymised where possible.
• Revoke our access to your Google basic profile information (you may also revoke this directly from your Google account at https://myaccount.google.com/permissions).

Once deletion is complete it cannot be reversed. Designs you shared with collaborators will also be removed for them.

13. Contacting us

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy, wish to exercise your data-protection rights, or have a privacy concern, please contact us via our contact page. You may also contact us at any time about a privacy concern and we will respond within a reasonable period, normally within 30 days.

14. Advertising and marketing

We do not display third-party advertising on the Service, and we do not use your personal information or behaviour on the Service to serve targeted or behavioural advertising on or off the Service. We may send you transactional service emails (payment confirmations, security alerts, account changes) as part of operating your account. We will only send you marketing emails if you explicitly opt in, and you may opt out at any time using the unsubscribe link in any such email.

15. Do Not Track signals

Some browsers offer a "Do Not Track" signal. The Service does not currently respond to or alter its behaviour in response to Do Not Track signals because the only tracking we perform is the essential session and analytics described in this policy, none of which is used for behavioural advertising or cross-site tracking.

16. Changes to this policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, legal requirements, or the features of the Service. We will post the updated policy on this page with a revised "Last updated" date. If we make material changes, we will also notify you by email or through an in-app notice where reasonably possible. Continued use of the Service after changes are posted constitutes acceptance of the revised policy.

17. Governing law

This Privacy Policy is governed by the laws of the Republic of South Africa, including the Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013 (POPIA). Any disputes arising from this policy will be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the South African courts.