Privacy policy

1. Who is responsible for your information

CARGO EXPRESS (PTY) LTD (“Cargo Express”, “we”, “us”), 72 Manhattan Street, Airport Industria, 7525 Cape Town, South Africa, is the responsible party for the personal information described in this policy.

Our information officer can be contacted at the email address shown on the contact page, with the subject “Privacy”. The details of the information officer appear in the legal notice and in our PAIA and POPIA manual.

2. Information we collect

We only collect the information we need for the purposes described below.

• Quote requests: your name, email address and, if you choose to provide them, your company, phone number, the origin and destination of the shipment, and the description, weight and dimensions of the goods.
• Contact messages: your name, email address, optional phone number, subject and message.
• Shipments we handle: the names, addresses and contact details of the shipper and the recipient, the description of the goods, the shipment documents and the movements recorded in our tracking system.
• Tracking searches: the tracking number entered. Searches are not linked to your identity.
• Security data: a one-way hashed form of your IP address, kept for a short time to protect the website against abuse. We cannot recover your IP address from it.
• Staff accounts (administration area only): name, email address, role and a record of actions performed.

We do not use analytics or advertising tools, and we do not build profiles of visitors.

3. Where the information comes from

Most information is provided directly by you. Information about a recipient or a shipper may be provided by our client who books the shipment; the client must be entitled to share it with us for that purpose. Customs authorities, carriers and partners may send us information about the progress of a shipment.

4. Why we use it, and on what basis

• To answer your quote requests and messages — to take steps at your request before concluding a contract, or with your consent.
• To organise, document, track and deliver shipments — to perform the contract with our client.
• To complete customs formalities and keep records required by law — to comply with legal obligations, including customs and tax laws.
• To protect the website, our systems and our clients against fraud and abuse — our legitimate interest in security.
• To handle claims and disputes — to protect our legitimate interests and comply with the law.

Supplying information is voluntary, but without the mandatory fields of a form (marked as required) we cannot process your request. Some information about the goods and the parties is required by law for customs purposes.

5. Direct marketing

We do not send electronic marketing messages through this website. If we ever wish to do so, we will only contact you with your prior consent, or as an existing client about similar services, and every message will allow you to unsubscribe free of charge, as required by section 69 of POPIA.

6. Who we share it with

Personal information is accessible only to authorised Cargo Express staff who need it for their work. It may be shared with:

• carriers, airlines, shipping lines, transport companies, warehouses and agents involved in the shipment, to the extent necessary to perform it;
• licensed customs clearing agents and customs and other public authorities, when the law requires it;
• our service providers (operators) that host and operate this website and our email, under a written agreement requiring them to process the information only on our instructions and to keep it secure: Cloudflare, Inc. (hosting, database and security) and Resend (email delivery and mailboxes);
• our professional advisers, insurers or a court, when necessary to establish or defend legal claims.

We do not sell personal information.

7. Transfers outside South Africa

This website and its database are hosted by Cloudflare on servers located outside South Africa (the database is located in Western Europe), and our email service is provided by Resend from its European region. International shipments also require information to be sent to carriers, agents and authorities in the countries of transit and destination.

These transfers are made in accordance with section 72 of POPIA: either the recipient is bound by a law, binding corporate rules or an agreement providing an adequate level of protection, or the transfer is necessary for the performance of the contract concluded with you or in your interest.

8. How we protect it

We apply appropriate technical and organisational measures, including encrypted connections (HTTPS), restricted access based on roles, strong password protection, automatic session expiry, an audit trail of actions performed in the administration area, protection against automated abuse and regular review of these measures.

If we have reasonable grounds to believe that your personal information has been accessed or acquired by an unauthorised person, we will notify the Information Regulator and you as soon as reasonably possible, as required by section 22 of POPIA.

9. How long we keep it

• Quote requests and messages: for as long as needed to handle them, and then for a maximum period set by Cargo Express (24 months by default), after which they are deleted automatically.
• Shipment records and documents: for the periods required by customs, tax and company law.
• Security records: a few hours to a few days.
• Staff session data: until the session expires.

Information may be kept longer if required by law or to establish or defend a legal claim.

10. Your rights

Subject to the conditions of POPIA, you have the right to:

• ask whether we hold personal information about you and obtain access to it;
• request the correction or deletion of information that is inaccurate, irrelevant, excessive, out of date, incomplete, misleading or unlawfully obtained (Form 2 under the POPIA Regulations);
• object, on reasonable grounds, to the processing of your information, and object at any time to direct marketing (Form 1);
• withdraw your consent where processing is based on consent;
• lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator.

These requests are free of charge. Send them to the email address on the contact page with the subject “Privacy”; we may ask you to prove your identity. We respond within the periods set by law. Requests for access to records are handled in accordance with our PAIA and POPIA manual.

11. Information Regulator

The Information Regulator (South Africa)
Woodmead North Office Park, 54 Maxwell Drive, Woodmead, Johannesburg, 2191
Telephone: 010 023 5200
General enquiries: enquiries@inforegulator.org.za
Website and complaints: inforegulator.org.za

12. Visitors outside South Africa

Cargo Express is established in South Africa and processes personal information in accordance with POPIA. If the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) or another data protection law applies to the processing of your information, we will honour the rights it grants you, including the rights of access, rectification, erasure, restriction, portability and objection, and you may complain to your local data protection authority.

13. Children

Our services are intended for businesses and adults. We do not knowingly collect information about children under 18 through this website.

14. Cookies

This website only uses cookies that are necessary for it to work. Details are given in our cookie policy.

15. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy to reflect changes in the law or in our practices. The date of the latest version is shown at the top of this page.