Privacy Policy

MzansiShield is a community safety, service-delivery and utilities-information app for South Africa. We process your personal information in line with the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (POPIA). This policy explains what we collect, why, and the choices you have.

1. Who we are

MzansiShield is operated by SysRely. We are the responsible party for your personal information. Our Information Officer can be reached at consulting@sysrely.com.

2. What we collect

• Account details — your email address or phone number and your display name (for sign-in), and an optional profile photo.
• Content you create — the reports, confirmations, replies and photos you submit.
• Location — the location you attach to a report or utilities check, and, if you choose to use live location or SOS, your real-time position while sharing is active.
• Technical data — your IP address, device type and similar data, used for security, abuse-prevention and to make features work.

3. Why we use it

To create and secure your account and send one-time sign-in PINs; to publish the content you choose to submit; to show local information such as load-shedding, water status and nearby alerts; to deliver notifications you have enabled; to prevent abuse and keep the community safe; and to comply with the law.

4. What's public and what stays private

Your posts are public. Reports, alerts and comments are visible to other users, along with your display name and the location you attach to them. Please don't post personal information — yours or others' — that you don't want shared.

Your email and phone number are never shown publicly. They are used only for sign-in. Your IP address and device data are never shown publicly and are visible only to our moderators for safety and abuse-prevention.

5. Location, live location & SOS

Location is only collected when you use a feature that needs it — attaching a location to a report, checking utilities for an area, or sharing live location.

Live location and the SOS beacon are always opt-in and time-limited. When you activate them, your real-time position is broadcast to nearby members and moderators so they can assist you. A visible LIVE indicator stays on your screen the whole time, you can stop instantly, and sharing ends automatically after the period you chose. When a share ends, your position stops updating. We do not track your location outside a share you have started. For a child or youth account, an SOS and live location are shared only with the trusted circle and the nearest registered responders - never with nearby members of the public. An adult can choose the same restriction in Settings.

6. Anonymous reporting

You can report incidents and confirm others' reports without an account; such posts appear as "Anonymous" and hide your name and handle from other users. For community safety and to prevent abuse, we privately record the device (and the posting account, if you are signed in) with every report. This information is used only for moderation and lawful requests, is never shown publicly, and anonymous reporting is rate-limited per device.

7. Notifications

If you enable notifications, we register a push subscription for your device so we can alert you to reports near you, SOS beacons in your area, and new app updates — even when the app is closed. If you enable location alongside notifications, we store your approximate location with your subscription so alerts can be limited to your area. You can turn notifications off at any time in the app, which removes the subscription.

8. Who we share with

We share personal information only with service providers who process it on our behalf under contract, and only for the purpose named. POPIA section 18 requires that you are told who receives your information, so this list names every one of them rather than stopping at the comfortable half - grouped by what of yours goes where, because "we share with partners" tells you nothing you can act on.

• Photos, videos and voice notes you post are screened before publication by OpenAI and Sightengine, and video is hosted and streamed by Cloudflare Stream — including live broadcasts.
• Your phone number goes to Twilio when we send a sign-in code, alert a trusted contact by SMS, or place a fake call you booked.
• Your email address goes to Microsoft 365 and Resend to deliver codes and alerts.
• Your device's notification token goes to Google (FCM), Huawei (Push Kit) or Apple (APNs) — whichever your phone uses — so an alert can reach you.
• Coordinates you look up go to OpenStreetMap, Photon, Nominatim, OSRM and Open-Meteo for maps, addresses, routes and weather, and a post you choose to translate goes to Google Cloud Translation.
• Hosting and storage is Netlify; bot-protection, network relay and page analytics are Cloudflare; error diagnostics are Sentry; load-shedding and water data come from EskomSePush.

Some of these providers are outside South Africa; such transfers are made only with appropriate protection under POPIA. We do not sell your information, and we do not use it for advertising. We may disclose information where the law requires it, or to protect the safety of a person or the public.

9. Retention & your control

We keep your information while your account is active. Sign-in PINs are deleted within minutes. Live-location positions are transient and stop being updated once a share ends. You can edit or delete your posts, remove your photo, or delete your profile and all its data at any time from within the app — Settings → Delete profile permanently. Your profile is hidden immediately and everything is erased after 7 days; signing in during that week cancels it. If you have already uninstalled the app you can request deletion by email instead — see our account deletion page, which also lists the few things we are obliged to keep. You can request a copy of the personal data we hold about you at any time.

10. Security

We use HTTPS, one-time PIN sign-in, signed sessions, access controls, content moderation and rate-limiting to protect your information. No system is perfectly secure, but we work to protect your data and to limit what is collected in the first place.

11. Children

MzansiShield offers accounts for minors only with the consent of a parent or guardian acting as the competent person under POPIA (sections 34-35). There are two kinds:

Child safety devices. A parent can set up a spare phone as a child's emergency device. It provides only an SOS button and Walk-with-me, and no feed, messaging or other features. We process the child's name, sign-in credential and - only while a share is active - their location, so that SOS and Walk-with-me can alert the parent-managed trusted circle and registered responders. A managed child's location is never shared with nearby members of the public, and any parent-initiated location check is always shown on the child's own screen while it is active. The parent can switch the device off at any time.

Youth accounts (13-17). A teenager may hold a full account only once a parent or guardian has given permission in the app. Youth accounts receive a youth-safe experience - graphic or adult-only content is withheld - and the guardian remains on the trusted circle. A guardian can manage the account, revoke consent, or return it to a simple safety device.

We do not knowingly create an account for anyone under 13 except as a parent-provisioned safety device. Content that sexualises, abuses or endangers a child is strictly prohibited, removed, and reported to the South African Police Service and the Film and Publication Board as South African law requires — our Child Safety Standards set out what is banned, how to report it, what we do about it and who to contact. A parent or guardian may request access to, or deletion of, their child's information at any time.

12. Your rights

Under POPIA you may access, correct or delete your information, object to processing, or withdraw consent. Contact us at consulting@sysrely.com. You also have the right to complain to the Information Regulator (South Africa) at POPIAComplaints@inforegulator.org.za.

13. Contact us

We may update this policy from time to time; material changes will be reflected here with a new "last updated" date.