Privacy Policy

Avante Web Studio (Pty) Ltd, registration number 2026/557968/07 ("Avante", "we", "us"), is the responsible party for the personal information described in this policy, under the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (POPIA).

• Information Officer: Tapelo Daniel
• Address: 113 Jabu Ndlovu Street, Pietermaritzburg, 3201, South Africa
• Email: avantelabs.official@gmail.com
• WhatsApp: +27 62 476 7535

• Contact and identity details: your name, business name, email address and phone number.
• Project information: your brief, and the content, images, logos and other material you send us for your website.
• Communications: messages you send us on WhatsApp, by email, or through the Client Dashboard.
• Domain registration details: the registrant details required to register your domain.
• Payment records: amounts, dates, payment references and payment status. We never receive or store your card details; these are handled by our payment providers (Paystack, PayFast or Ozow).
• Account details (if you use the Client Dashboard): your login email and a securely hashed password, and the date you accepted our Terms.
• AI Support content (if you subscribe): documents you upload to your assistant's knowledge base, and the conversations your assistant handles.
• Technical information: basic server and security logs (such as IP address and browser type) created when you use our website.

• To quote for, build, deliver, host and maintain your website, and to register and renew your domain.
• To provide AI Support, if you subscribe.
• To take payments, keep financial records and meet our tax and legal obligations.
• To communicate with you about your project, payments and our services.
• To keep our systems secure and prevent fraud.

We process your information because it is necessary to perform our agreement with you, to comply with the law, for our legitimate interest in running and securing our business, or with your consent.

We will not send you marketing messages without your consent, and you can opt out of any marketing at any time.

We do not sell your personal information or use it for advertising. We share it only with service providers who help us deliver our services, and only as needed:

• WhatsApp (Meta): our main messaging channel with clients.
• Paystack, PayFast and Ozow: payment processing.
• Supabase: database and file storage.
• Vercel: website hosting.
• Resend: transactional email delivery.
• Google: email correspondence.
• HostAfrica and Cloudflare: domain registration and DNS. Depending on the domain extension, some registrant details may be published in public domain registry (WHOIS) records, according to the registry's rules.
• OpenRouter and the AI model providers it connects to (such as OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta): only for AI Support subscribers, to generate your assistant's replies from your knowledge base.
• Twilio: only where your AI Support plan includes SMS or other messaging channels.

We may also disclose information where the law requires it.

Several of these providers store or process information on servers outside South Africa, including in the United States and the European Union. We use providers that maintain appropriate security and data-protection commitments, as POPIA requires for cross-border transfers.

We use access controls, encrypted connections (HTTPS), restricted administrative access and reputable infrastructure providers to protect your information. No system is completely secure, but we take reasonable steps to prevent loss, misuse and unauthorised access.

We keep your information for as long as we provide services to you, and afterwards for as long as South African tax and company law requires us to keep financial and business records (generally five to seven years). Other information is deleted or anonymised when it is no longer needed.

If you cancel AI Support, we delete your uploaded knowledge-base documents within a reasonable period, unless you ask us to keep them.

Under POPIA, you may:

• ask whether we hold personal information about you, and request a copy;
• ask us to correct or update it;
• ask us to delete it, where we are not legally required to keep it;
• object to certain processing, and withdraw consent where processing is based on consent.

To make a request, contact our Information Officer using the details in Section 1.

If you believe we have mishandled your information, you may lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator of South Africa (www.inforegulator.org.za).

Our website does not use tracking or advertising cookies. If you use the Client Dashboard, we use essential browser storage to keep you signed in.

Our services are intended for businesses and adults. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children.

We may update this policy from time to time. The effective date at the top shows when it was last changed.