How we look after your information

Who we are

Effekt Studios (“we”) is a recruitment agency based in Tzaneen, Limpopo, South Africa. We are the “responsible party” for the personal information described here. Our Information Officer can be reached at info@effektstudios.com.

What we collect, and why

If you are a candidate

• Identity and contact details — name, e-mail, phone, town and province. To create your profile and stay in touch.
• Career information — your CV or LinkedIn export and everything in it: work history, education, qualifications, certificates, licences, languages, skills, achievements, memberships, publications and references. To match you to roles and present you to employers.
• Preferences — salary expectation, notice period, locations, remote preference. To avoid wasting your time with roles that do not fit.
• Identifiers — South African ID number or passport number, nationality and right to work. Employers need these before an offer; we also use the ID number to confirm identity and avoid duplicate profiles. These are encrypted in storage.
• Special personal information — race, gender and disability status, and health information only where you volunteer it. This is collected only with your separate, explicit consent, because many employers must report on it under the Employment Equity Act and some roles are designated Employment Equity positions (POPIA section 27(1)(a) and section 29). Declining does not affect how we work with you.
• Interaction records — applications, interview notes, feedback from employers and your messages to us. To run the process and to show you where every application stands.

If you are an employer or client contact

• Your name, work e-mail, phone, job title and company details, the vacancies you brief us on, fee terms you accept, and feedback you give on candidates. To deliver the service and invoice for it (performance of a contract).

If you visit the website

• Standard technical data (IP address, browser, pages viewed) through Google Analytics and Firebase Performance Monitoring, used to keep the site fast and to understand what visitors find useful. Security services (App Check, reCAPTCHA Enterprise) process technical signals to block abuse of our forms.

Our lawful basis

For candidates, we process your information with your consent and because it is necessary to provide the service you asked for. For employers, processing is necessary to perform our contract with you. Special personal information is processed only with your explicit consent and, for race and ethnic origin, because it is necessary to comply with laws designed to protect or advance persons disadvantaged by unfair discrimination (POPIA section 29(b)). Direct marketing to existing clients relies on section 69(3); every such e-mail has an unsubscribe link.

Who sees your information

• Employers see an anonymised summary of a candidate first. Your name, contact details and CV are shared only after you have agreed to be put forward for that specific role. Race, gender and disability are shared only for designated Employment Equity positions, after that agreement, and only as a summary.
• Our team — the consultants who work on your roles or applications. Access to sensitive fields is restricted by role and logged.
• Operators who process data on our behalf — Google Cloud / Firebase (hosting, database, storage, security; data stored in the Johannesburg region, with some processing in the European Union and United States for page rendering, e-mail and document analysis), and our transactional e-mail provider. Each is bound by a written agreement to protect your information and to process it only on our instructions.
• Nobody else, unless the law requires it. We do not sell personal information.

Transfers outside South Africa

Your records are stored in South Africa. Where a supplier processes information outside South Africa (for example to render a web page or analyse a document), we rely on POPIA section 72: the recipient is bound by contractual terms that provide substantially similar protection, or the transfer is necessary to perform the service you requested.

How long we keep it

• Candidate profiles: for as long as you keep your account active, and for 24 months after your last activity. We warn you by e-mail 30 days and 7 days before removing an inactive profile, and you can extend it with one click.
• Placement records: for five years after the placement, for tax and contractual reasons, in reduced form.
• Enquiries that do not lead to a relationship: 12 months.
• Website analytics: as configured in Google Analytics, currently 14 months.

Security

Information is transmitted over encrypted connections and stored on Google Cloud infrastructure in the Johannesburg region. ID and passport numbers are additionally encrypted at the application level. Access is restricted by role, every access to sensitive fields is logged, and we review the log. If a breach ever occurs that is likely to affect you, we will notify the Information Regulator and you as soon as reasonably possible, as section 22 requires.

Your rights

You may at any time: see the information we hold about you; correct it; ask us to delete it; withdraw a consent you have given; object to processing; and complain to the Information Regulator. Candidates can do most of this directly from their portal (Profile → Your data); everyone can e-mail info@effektstudios.com. We respond within the periods set by POPIA and the Promotion of Access to Information Act, and there is no charge for a reasonable request. Our PAIA manual describes the formal procedure.

The Information Regulator (South Africa): JD House, 27 Stiemens Street, Braamfontein, Johannesburg; inforegulator.org.za; complaints: POPIAComplaints@inforegulator.org.za.

Cookies

We use a session cookie to keep you signed in, and analytics cookies from Google Analytics. We do not use advertising cookies. You can block analytics cookies in your browser without affecting the service.

Changes to this notice

When we change this notice materially we will ask candidates to review and re-confirm their consent the next time they sign in, and we keep the version you agreed to on record.