PRIVACY POLICY

1. WHAT IS COVERED BY THIS PRIVACY POLICY AND DO OTHER POLICIES APPLY TO YOU?

This privacy policy covers situations where we, CHARGEO, access, collect, store process, use, disclose or transfer your personal information in paper or electronic form. It also covers situations where approved partners or other members of CHARGEO use your personal information on our behalf. 

In some cases, other policies apply to you. It may be the case when you use certain products or services, and in this event: 

–           You will be notified of these other policies while using the products or services they apply to.

–           Such policies will supersede this privacy policy unless they expressly refer to it.

This privacy policy does not cover products or services you might use as provided by other companies acting on their own account.

Our privacy policy does not extend to services provided by other companies acting on their own account, such as franchisees and licensees or when you share information through social media (WeChat, WhatsApp, Baidu, Kakao Talk, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.), or other online platforms owned and managed by other companies. These other companies have their own privacy policies in place, so remember that the way they use any personal information you give them will be subject to their rules and not ours. 

2. WHAT SPECIFIC TERMS APPLY TO YOU DEPENDING ON YOUR COUNTRY OF RESIDENCE?

The protection of your personal information is an essential part of our activities. In order to provide you with a personalized experience, we will apply the data protection laws of your country of residence. This approach would also be consistent with consumer laws of the country of your habitual residence, and would hence allow us to better meet your expectations regarding the protection of your personal information.

3. WHO COLLECTS & USES YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION?

We, CHARGEO, act as the “data controller”, which means that we determine “why” and “how” your personal information is collected and used. We are a South African corporation, located in Durban, KZN company registration number 2021/491671/07.

To be able to deliver our products and services to you, we need to share your personal information with approved partners or other members of CHARGEO who generally act as our “data processors”. All are bound by an obligation to implement appropriate security measures to protect personal data in their possession, and are bound by a strict confidentiality agreement and specific contractual terms on “how” and “when” they are allowed to use your personal information on our behalf. 

Please be aware that certain approved partners, such as our franchisees and licensees or social media, could also determine “why” and “how” your personal information is used. They have their own privacy and cookies policies, so remember that the personal information you give them will be subject to their rules and not ours.

Your local legislation may not refer to the terms “data controller” or “data processor”, but respectively to terms such as “data user”, “owner”, “business”, “responsible party”, etc., and as “data intermediary”, “operator”, etc. In order to understand our role, please note that we, CHARGEO, are the entity who decides on the methods and purposes of the processing of your personal information by determining “why” and “how” your personal information is collected and used. Our “data processors” are entities who use your personal information on our behalf by receiving instructions from us on “how” and “when” they are allowed to use it. 

4. WHY DO WE COLLECT YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION?

CHARGEO will collect, record, hold, organize, structure, store, update, adapt, combine, consult, use, transfer and disclose your personal information for the purposes described in this section. Your personal information will not be further used for purposes incompatible or inconsistent with the purposes for which it was collected, unless permitted by the applicable legislation. 

 The processing of your personal information will comply with your privacy legislation and rely on the legal bases set out in this section. The legal bases listed in this section will also apply when we share your data with third parties for the purposes mentioned below.

If you would like more information on the purposes and legal bases, you can contact us on info@chargeo.co.za.

 

  1. To provide you with the products and services you have purchased or otherwise requested  

We will use your personal information to manage our relationship with you and to perform our obligations under the contract you conclude with us when you purchase or otherwise request products or services from us. This can cover various activities such as internal accounting, processing your payment or delivery.

To provide you with the products and services you have requested, we will access, collect, store, process, use, disclose and transfer your personal information for invoicing, payment management and internal accounting.

Some of the operations mentioned above can be implemented by partners of ours as identified in section “With whom do we share your personal information?” below, in particular the registration, payment and delivery of your order. Your information may be communicated, used or collected directly via the information system of our partner.

Certain specific information may be required to provide you with gift cards, customization services, or when you reserve a product or a service, request the repair of a product, or purchase products or services by phone, or on our website or a marketplace, including our restaurants’ bookings. In such cases, we could access, collect, store and use your personal information for delivery, warehouse and return management. During your visit to our store, we may need to collect your information in order to allow you to access our premises or when you wish to obtain a particular service: request for tax on products or in connection with our after-sales service, etc.

  1. To manage your CHARGEO profile  

Once you have requested us to create your CHARGEO profile, via CHARGEO websites or any other means, including our customer service, your personal information will be linked to this profile, where we will keep all the information we have on you. This could include personal information we obtain directly from you as well as from other sources in accordance with applicable legislation. This could also include information about the purchases made when checking out as a guest or when checking out using a profile. The information in your CHARGEO profile is crucial to provide you with the CHARGEO personalized and tailored experience, and in some cases is necessary in order to access to some specific services or to purchase from our website, and thus it needs to be kept up to date for the best experience.

Once you have asked us to create your Gucci profile, we will supplement it with personal information such as your purchases, preferences and contact details. In this context, please be aware that we use personal identification information, such as your email address or phone number, to link an interaction or a purchase with your CHAGREO profile. This also applies when checking-out as a guest on our website when making a purchase, as mentioned above, or in case you bind your social media open ID account with your CHARGEO profile (by using dedicated QR Codes for example). In addition, we may use your date of birth to determine that you are old enough to use our services.

In order to keep your personal information accurate, we will take every reasonable step to ensure that personal information we hold is properly updated. Subject to your applicable privacy legislation you may have the right to have your information rectified at any time, and in any event please let us know if any of your information needs updating or correcting, and we will make our best efforts to detect and correct inaccurate personal information (data cleansing) and delete any duplicated dataset. This may require us to correct typographical errors or inconsistent personal information.

 

 

  1. To provide you with tailored customer service and assistance  

You should have the same unified experience no matter how we communicate. Whether this happens in our stores, on our website, by chat, by phone or by video, and whether you contact us or we contact you, we want to provide you with relevant and tailored customer service.

For this purpose of providing you the CHARGEO experience, we will collect, store, process, use, disclose and transfer your personal information to be able to identify you. This will allow us to provide you with the tailored assistance you are asking for or to share relevant information with you. In addition, when you contact us, we may retain the personal information you share with us to always provide you with such a customised and personalised experience. This could happen if you are an existing or potential customer. Your personal information will be linked to your CHARGEO profile, if you have requested us to create one, or to a temporary record.

To provide you with a smooth and enjoyable customer experience, know you better to provide you with tailored answers, and to improve the quality and security of our services, we may rely on your consent, proceed in accordance with our contract with you, or take all reasonable steps to enter into a contract with you, or rely on our legitimate interest to improve our services.

We will use the information we have about you to try to identify you when you contact us (whether by phone, video chat, text message, chat, social media, etc.). When we can identify you, we will be able to access personal information available in your CHARGEO profile or in your temporary record, to know when you have previously interacted with us and to provide you with the tailored assistance you are asking for. This could include real-time or subsequent monitoring of your interaction with us (for example on our website or in a store) to identify the products you are looking at or what could be your specific need.

To provide you with adequate customer service, you may be asked if you need further assistance when you are on our website or in a store. On our website, if you do not want to be contacted, kindly close the chat navigation window. This service was implemented for you to enjoy the same service as in one of our physical stores.

If we are not able to identify you, we may create a temporary record to allow you to have a unified purchase experience. Indeed, however you interact with us, we will do our best to avoid asking you again for information you have already shared with us.

Your personal information, in particular your CHARGEO profile if you have created one or the temporary record we may create about you, could enable our sales associates to contact you directly in relation to the products and services you have purchased or otherwise requested, such as when a product becomes available again or when an order you have placed has been received in store, or to share with you any other information you have requested from us.

In addition, the monitoring of our interaction (including, with prior notice to you, via voice or video recording – such as real time listening or analysis – or listening in real time) enables us to improve the quality and safety of our services and to provide you with tailored answers.

All our customers are important to us. However, some of our customers and potential customers benefit from a more personalized experience due to the important relationship they keep with us. Our teams may need to collect and gather information on such customers or potential customers in order to identify personalities who correspond to the image and values of CHARGEO to offer them unique support. This may be the case when you participate in one of our selective projects or when our Sales Associates offers you to participate in events or contacts you for certain special occasions (for your birthdays or for a particular event of your life).

  1. D.To enable you to receive relevant information and tailored marketing content.

You will receive information and updates about us either at your request (with your prior consent where required by law) or when we are authorised by law to send you such information and updates directly, for instance after a purchase or a reservation within one of our restaurants. Such communication can be global or local, and may include updates about our products and services, notifications, invitations to events, updates on our restaurant’s initiatives, offers, surveys, etc.
 

Our communications will be customised and specifically designed to be of interest to you and will be updated with any new personal information linked to your CHARGEO profile. We will thus use your personal information to send you tailored communications or other customised advertisements or marketing campaigns. This use of your information includes some profiling activity.

 

When you share your contact information with us, we may use this personal information to contact you through related communication channels (such as text message, MMS, e-mail, post, internet means, social media or telephone), with your consent where required. You can of course request us not to use a particular channel of communication or opt-out (unsubscribe) from it by applying the opt-out option that will always be shared with you. If you want to stop receiving communication from us via all communication channels, please send an email to info@charge.co.za.

 

As part of the CHARGEO experience, we will always try to customize and personalize your experience with us. This is why we will use your personal information to send you tailored communications or personalize your journey with us, but only with your prior consent where it is required under applicable privacy legislation. Our communications could include tailored product recommendations we think you might like, personalized marketing content designed to suit your interests, personalized events invitations or, at your request and where available, personalized and customized products. For these purposes, we will use the information you provide to us (for example your date of birth, your country of residence, your preferred means of contact, etc.) and/or jointly or independently, certain patterns we may observe when interacting with you (for example where you prefer buying our products, what type of products you like, which occasions you are shopping for, etc.). With this information, we may create groups of similar customers (called “persona”) to whom we can decide to offer personalized content and experiences both in inbound or outbound interactions. In this context, we may make inferences about you, as derived from your personal information (profiling). For example, if you always purchase our products from the same store (specific location or online), we may consider this store as your preferred one. This will allow us to customize your experience with CHARGEO based on your interests and shopping habits (i.e. tailored communication). In order to provide you with such customized and personalized experience, in our stores or online, you may be required to log in or identify yourself.

 

To enrich your personal information, we may use cookies or other online advertising technologies. Via such technologies, we will collect personal information related to your activities on social media and your browsing activity across different websites and devices (for example: to know if you have visited our website after opening a newsletter you have received). Certain technologies may rely on services provided by other companies acting on their own account (such as social media WeChat, WhatsApp, Baidu, Kakao Talk, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or other online platforms). These companies have their own privacy and cookies policies and the way they use the personal information you share with them will be subject to their rules and not ours.

 

To enrich your personal information, we can match it with personal information held by others (for example, by sharing and matching your information with information held by trusted partners, or by binding your social media open ID account with your CHARGRO profile (by using the dedicated QR Codes for example). This process will only be conducted by using customers’ unique identifiers and reidentification protocols in order to protect the confidentiality of your personal information.

 

Personal information linked to your CHARGEO profile Personal information linked to your CHARGEO profile (your identification personal information such as your e-mail address, phone number, social network id, etc.) will enable us to reach you on third-party platforms or to create “lookalike campaigns”, allowing us to find new people who are likely to be interested in our products because they may be similar to you. We may conduct such campaigns through our website, social media or other communication means such as search engine. When this kind of campaigns are conducted, before it is shared, your personal information is hashed and turned into short fingerprints that cannot be reversed.