We respect and are committed to protecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains how your personal information is gathered, processed and used. We will only use your personal information in ways that are compatible with this Privacy Policy. The following policies are only in effect for the web pages, newsletters and opt-in email or announcement lists owned and operated by Vanguard.

The following discloses our Privacy Policy.

WE VALUE YOUR PARTICIPATION AND TRUST AND ARE COMMITTED TO A NO-SPAM POLICY.

What information is collected and how is it collected?

When you visit our website, our web servers automatically collect the following information about the visit/visitor:

• The Internet domain and IP address (i.e. Internet Protocol – a unique set of numbers that is allocated to every computer that is connected to the Internet)
• The visitor’s web browser
• The date and time of the website visit as well as the pages you viewed on our site
• The address of the site from which the visitor reached our site (if they came to our site via a link on another site).

This information yields data and statistics about our site, which help us better understand how our site is being used and what we can do to make it more useful to visitors.

Your computer’s domain and IP address do not reveal any of your personal information or contact details.

What other information do we request?

We may also request a visitor’s personal details, including but not limited to email address, mailing address for the purposes of registering as a site user, conducting a survey or to provide additional services (for example, subscriptions to email newsletters, announcement lists or information about events). When a visitor enters a contest or other promotion, we may ask for their name, address and email address so that we can administer the contest and notify winners.

Whenever we request the identity of a visitor, we will clearly indicate the purpose of the enquiry.

What do we do with the information provided to us?

The primary goal in collecting personal information is to provide you with customised services, features and content as well as to give you an efficient personalised experience that best meets your needs. We also aggregate information on what pages you access.

Additionally, we use the information you provide us (both online and offline) to communicate with you and respond to your queries or requests.

If you choose to identify yourself by sending us an email or completing an online enquiry form, Vanguard employees will have access to such information to contact you for direct marketing purposes.

Information submitted by you, such as survey information and/or comments or feedback, may be stored in a personally identifiable format and will only be used for internal purposes. It will not be shared with individuals or organisations outside of Vanguard.

We maintain a strict no-spam policy. We will also not sell or rent your email address to a third party.

Will we disclose the information we collect to outside, third parties?

Vanguard will disclose personal information when required by law or in the good-faith belief that such action is necessary to:

• Conform to the edicts of the law or comply with a legal process served on vanguard.co.za
• Protect and defend the rights or property of Vanguard or visitors to vanguard.co.za
• Identify persons who may be violating the law, the legal notice or the rights of third parties
• Cooperate with the investigations of purported unlawful activities.

What else should I know about my privacy when online?

The Vanguard website may contain links to other websites. Please consult the privacy policies of those sites, as we are not responsible for nor have control over the information that is submitted to or collected by those third party sites.

Please keep in mind that whenever you voluntarily disclose personal information online – for example, through email, discussion lists or elsewhere – that information can be collected and used by others. In short, if you post personal information online that is accessible to the public, you may receive unsolicited messages from other parties in return.

Ultimately, you are solely responsible for maintaining the secrecy of your personal information. We encourage visitors to be careful and responsible online.

Use of “cookies”

“Cookies” are small data files that are sent to your browser from a web server and stored on your computer’s hard drive. These assist us in providing customised and personalised services.

No personal information is stored in this “cookie”. A “cookie” can’t read data off your hard disk or read “cookie” files created by other sites. “Cookies” do not damage your system.

From time to time, Vanguard may send a “cookie” to your computer. We use “cookies” to identify unique website users and which areas of the Vanguard website you have visited. This information may be used to personalise our services to you.

WE DO NOT RECORD ANY INFORMATION OTHER THAN HOW YOU INTERACT WITH THE VANGUARD WEBSITE.

You can choose whether to accept “cookies” by changing the settings of your browser. You can reset your browser to refuse all “cookies” or allow your browser to show you when a “cookie” is being sent. If you choose not to accept these “cookies”, your on-site experience may be diminished and some features may not work as intended.

Email communication

From time to time, Vanguard distributes an online newsletter as well as business announcements, which we believe are relevant and interesting to our stakeholders. Vanguard recognises that users may not wish to be contacted regarding our services, therefore they may opt out of any email marketing or newsletters that may result from use of the site. Our emails include written instructions detailing how to remove yourself from our mailing list.

All our email communications are tracked to evaluate interaction success and to better understand how stakeholders are responding to communications. Typically, Vanguard uses email tagging to identify which links in the email are clicked on and how you then interact with the Vanguard website. This information may be linked to the unique “cookie” stored on your hard drive.

Access

You have the right, at any time, to request a copy of the information supplied by you that we hold. We may have the right to charge an administrative fee for this service.

Should you wish to make a request for this information, please contact Vanguard in writing.

You also have the right to ask Vanguard to stop using your information.

Changes to our Privacy Policy

This policy is effective as of April 10, 2018. Vanguard reserves the right to amend this policy from time to time, without prior notice. Any amendments to this policy will be set out here, to clarify what information we gather, the purposes thereof, and the circumstances under which we disclose it.

Your consent to this agreement

By using the Vanguard website, you consent to the collection and use of information by us, as specified above.

Policy updated: 23 June 2021