PAIA manual

This is the manual of Signal Ledger (trading as SignalLedger) under section 51 of the Promotion of Access to Information Act 2 of 2000 (PAIA), as amended by the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (POPIA). It says what records we keep and how you can ask for them. Prepared 3 November 2026.

1. Who we are and how to reach us

• Private body: Signal Ledger, trading as SignalLedger, a sole proprietorship. It is not a registered company.
• Head of the private body and Information Officer: Jerry Pretorius (the owner)
• Postal and street address: 3 Fitzherbert Street, Ruyterwacht, Cape Town, 7460
• Phone: 079 170 6632
• Email for PAIA and POPIA requests: privacy@signalledger.co.za
• Website: signalledger.co.za

2. The Information Regulator's guide

The Information Regulator publishes a guide on how to use PAIA and POPIA (section 10 of PAIA), in every official language. It is on the Regulator's website, inforegulator.org.za, and you can ask the Regulator for a copy: JD House, 27 Stiemens Street, Braamfontein, Johannesburg, 2001; enquiries@inforegulator.org.za.

3. Records you can see without asking

These are on our website for anyone: the Terms of Use, the privacy notice, the disclaimer, how we check our information, our prices, the free checklists and tools, and this manual.

4. Records kept because a law requires them

• Income Tax Act 58 of 1962 and Tax Administration Act 28 of 2011: accounting and tax records.
• Value-Added Tax Act 89 of 1991: not registered for VAT at present; VAT records once registered.
• Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002: the seller details and terms we show buyers (section 43).
• Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008: records of sales, prices and complaints.
• Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013: records of how personal information is processed, consents and requests.
• If we employ anyone: Basic Conditions of Employment Act 75 of 1997, Unemployment Insurance Act 63 of 2001, Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act 130 of 1993 and the Skills Development Levies Act 9 of 1999.

5. Other records we keep

• Business and finance: bank statements, payment reports from PayFast, expenses, invoices, tax returns.
• Customers: orders and what was delivered, accounts and the businesses saved in them, SignalLedger Pro plans and payments, invitations, emails and support requests, the time a buyer confirmed being 18 or older, and whether they switched on law update emails (and which they were sent).
• Help requests: what a customer asked a registered professional to help with, their contact and business details, their consent and confirmation, the professional who took it on, and the introduction fee (personal details deleted 30 days after an unmatched request, 90 days after a match).
• Partners: applications and approvals of registered professionals (name, firm, contact details, professional body and registration number, services and areas, how we checked the registration), the job cards offered and accepted, bad-lead reports and lead-fee invoices.
• Marketing: who asked for tips emails and who unsubscribed (the do-not-email list).
• Website and security: the site's code and content, error reports (personal details removed), help-chat questions our FAQ could not answer (90 days, not linked to anyone), encrypted backups.
• Suppliers and service providers: agreements and accounts with our hosting, email, payment and other providers.
• Content: the industry checklists, guides and templates, with the sources they were checked against.

6. Personal information we process (POPIA)

• Why: to run the website and accounts, deliver what customers buy, send emails they asked for, give support, keep records the law requires, and keep the site secure.
• Whose and what: visitors (no personal information unless they give it), customers and account holders (name, email address, orders, saved businesses and calendar answers, payment reference, never card or bank details), customers who ask for help (name, phone, email, province and town, business details and answers about the job), people invited to an account (email address), partners (name, firm, contact details, professional registration), suppliers (contact and account details).
• Who receives it: the service providers that do a job for us, named in the privacy notice (PayFast, Resend, Cloudflare, and Anthropic only if we switch on its help chat); the one registered professional who accepts a customer's help request, only with that customer's confirmed consent and only for that request; and anyone a law requires us to give it to. We do not sell personal information.
• Outside South Africa: our email and hosting providers store information outside South Africa (POPIA section 72); the privacy notice explains this.
• How we protect it: HTTPS everywhere, card details handled only by PayFast, sign-in by emailed link (no passwords stored), two-step sign-in on our service accounts, limited access, encrypted backups, download links that expire, and the steps in our breach plan if something goes wrong.

7. How to ask for a record

1. Fill in Form 2 (request for access to a record), from the Information Regulator's website, or email us and we will send it.
2. Send it to privacy@signalledger.co.za or post it to the address above. Say which record you want, how you want it (a copy, an email, or to look at it), and, if you ask on someone else's behalf, in what capacity.
3. If you want a record to protect or use a right, say which right and why the record is needed (section 53).
4. We tell you within 30 days whether we will give it. We may extend this once by up to 30 days and will tell you why (section 57).
5. We may refuse a record only on the grounds in Chapter 4 of Part 3 of PAIA (for example, another person's personal information, commercial information of a third party, or legally privileged records), and we will give reasons.

Asking for your own personal information under POPIA (section 23) costs nothing: email privacy@signalledger.co.za.

8. Fees

The fees are those prescribed in the PAIA Regulations, 2021, for private bodies. We are not registered for VAT, so no VAT is added.

Item	Fee
Request fee (not payable for your own personal information)	R140.00
Photocopy or printout, per A4 page	R2.00
Copy on a flash drive or CD you supply	R40.00
Search and preparation, per hour after the first hour	R145.00, at most R435.00
Deposit, if the search takes more than 6 hours	One third of the access fee
Postage or email	Actual cost, if any

9. If you are not happy with our answer

You may complain to the Information Regulator within 180 days (section 77A of PAIA), or apply to a court (section 78): inforegulator.org.za, PAIAComplaints@inforegulator.org.za.

10. Where this manual is available

On this page, and on request at the address above at no charge. We update it when our records or details change.

Last updated 3 November 2026.