Privacy Policy

Dr Mervin Messias (“we”, “us”) respects your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, store and protect your personal information when you use mervinmessias.com (“the Website”), buy our books, or contact us, in accordance with the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (“POPIA”).

The responsible party for the processing of your personal information is Dr Mervin Messias, 104 11th Street, Parkmore, Sandton, 2196, South Africa. Telephone: +27 (0) 11 783 0108. Email: mervin@mervinmessias.com.

We collect only the information we need, namely:

• •Contact form: your name, contact details (such as phone number), email address, the subject and content of your message, and whether you would like updates on the latest books.
• •Book orders: your name, email address, phone number, billing and delivery addresses, and the details of your order.
• •Consultations: the details you share when booking and during a consultation, which may include information about your family, assets and estate planning needs.
• •Website usage: anonymous analytics information such as pages visited and number of visitors, collected through cookies (see section 6).

We do not collect or store your payment card details. Payments are processed directly by a secure third-party payment gateway.

We process your personal information to:

• •respond to your enquiries and arrange consultations;
• •process, deliver and support your book orders;
• •provide our consulting services to you;
• •send you updates about new books and articles, but only if you have opted in;
• •understand how the Website is used so that we can improve it;
• •comply with our legal, tax and regulatory obligations.

We process your information on the grounds permitted by section 11 of POPIA: your consent, the conclusion or performance of a contract with you, compliance with a legal obligation, or our legitimate interests in running and improving our practice and Website.

We will only send you updates about new books or other marketing communications if you have given your consent (for example, by selecting “Yes” to updates on our contact form) or if you are an existing customer and the communication relates to similar products. You can unsubscribe at any time by using the link in any communication or by emailing mervin@mervinmessias.com.

The Website uses two types of cookies:

• •Strictly necessary cookies, which save your cookie preferences and enable core functions such as your shopping cart.
• •Analytics cookies (Google Analytics), which collect anonymous information such as the number of visitors and the most popular pages, to help us improve the Website.

You can accept, reject or change your cookie settings at any time using the cookie banner on the Website, or through your browser settings.

We do not sell your personal information. We share it only where necessary with:

• •our payment gateway provider, to process your payment;
• •couriers and postal services, to deliver your order;
• •website hosting, email and analytics service providers who process information on our behalf;
• •authorities or regulators, where required by law.

These operators are required to keep your information confidential and secure. Where a service provider is located outside South Africa, we make sure the transfer complies with section 72 of POPIA.

In line with section 19 of POPIA, we take appropriate and reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect your personal information against loss, damage, and unauthorised access or disclosure.

We keep your personal information only for as long as needed for the purposes described above, or as required by law (for example, tax and accounting records). Afterwards it is securely deleted or de-identified.

Under POPIA you have the right to:

• •ask whether we hold your personal information and request access to it;
• •ask us to correct or update inaccurate or incomplete information;
• •ask us to delete or destroy information we are no longer entitled to keep;
• •object to the processing of your information on reasonable grounds;
• •object to direct marketing and withdraw your consent at any time;
• •lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator.

To exercise any of these rights, email mervin@mervinmessias.com. We may need to verify your identity before responding.

If you are not satisfied with how we have handled your personal information, you may contact the Information Regulator (South Africa): complaints.IR@inforegulator.org.za, website www.inforegulator.org.za.

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. The latest version will always be published on this page with its date of last update.

For privacy questions, email mervin@mervinmessias.com. For questions about book orders, email sales@mervinmessias.com.