What is this Privacy Policy for?

This privacy policy is for this website [sparrows.org.za], which is served by DiaMatrix CC, and governs the privacy of its users.

The policy sets out the different areas where user privacy is concerned and outlines the obligations & requirements of the users, the website and website owners. Furthermore the way this website processes, stores and protects user data and information will also be detailed within this policy.

The Website

This website and its owners take a proactive approach to user privacy and ensure the necessary steps are taken to protect the privacy of its users throughout their visiting experience.

Use of Cookies

This website uses cookies to better the user’s experience while visiting the website. Where applicable this website uses a cookie control system allowing the user on their first visit to the website to allow or disallow the use of cookies on their computer / device. This complies with recent legislation requirements for websites to get explicit consent from users before leaving behind or reading files such as cookies on a user’s computer / device.

Cookies are small files saved to the user’s computers hard drive that track, save and store information about the user’s interactions and usage of the website. This allows the website, through its server to offer the users with a tailored experience within this website.

Users are advised that if they wish to deny the use and saving of cookies from this website on to their computers hard drive they should take necessary steps within their web browsers security settings to block all cookies from this website and its external serving vendors.

This website uses tracking software to monitor its visitors to better understand how they use it. This software is provided by Google Analytics which uses cookies to track visitor usage. The software will save a cookie to your computers hard drive to track and monitor your engagement and usage of the website, but will not store, save or collect personal information. You can read Google’s privacy policy here for further information [http://www.google.com/privacy.html].

Other cookies may be stored to your computers hard drive by external vendors when this website uses referral programs, sponsored links or adverts. Such cookies are used for conversion and referral tracking and typically expire after 30 days, though some may take longer. No personal information is stored, saved or collected.

Contact & Communication

Users contacting this website and/or its owners do so at their own discretion and offer any such personal details requested at their own risk. Your personal information is kept private and stored securely until a time it is no longer required or has no use, as detailed in the Data Protection Act 1998. Every effort has been made to make sure a safe and secure form to email submission process but we advise users using such form to email processes that they do so at their own risk.

This website and its owners use any information submitted to give you further information about the products / services they offer or to help you in answering any questions or queries you may have submitted. This includes using your details to subscribe you to any email newsletter program the website operates but only if this was made clear to you and your express permission was granted when submitting any form to email process. Or whereby you the consumer have previously purchased from or enquired about purchasing from the company a product or service that the email newsletter relates to. This is by no means an entire list of your user rights in regard to receiving email marketing material.

Your details are not passed on to any third parties.

External Links

Although this website only looks to include quality, safe and relevant external links, users are advised adopt a policy of caution before clicking any external web links mentioned throughout this website. (External links are clickable text / banner / image links to other websites, similar to: www.google.com or Bing.)

The owners of this website cannot guarantee or verify the contents of any externally linked website despite their best efforts. Users should note that they click on external links at their own risk and this website and its owners cannot be held liable for any damages or implications caused by visiting any external links mentioned.

Adverts and Sponsored Links

This website may contain sponsored links and adverts. These will typically be served through our advertising partners, who may have detailed privacy policies relating directly to the adverts they serve.

Clicking on any such adverts will send you to the advertisers website through a referral program which may use cookies and will track the number of referrals sent from this website. This may include the use of cookies which may in turn be saved on your computers hard drive. Users should note they click on sponsored external links at their own risk and this website and its owners cannot be held liable for any damages or implications caused by visiting any external links mentioned.

Some of these advertisers may use technology such as cookies and web beacons when they advertise on our site, which will also send these advertisers (such as Google through the Google AdSense program) information including your IP address, your ISP, the browser you used to visit our site, and in some cases, whether you have Flash installed. This is generally used for geo-targeting purposes (showing New York real estate ads to someone in New York, for example) or showing certain ads based on specific sites visited (such as showing cooking ads to someone who frequents cooking sites).

DoubleClick DART cookies

We also may use DART cookies for ad serving through Google’s DoubleClick, which places a cookie on your computer when you are browsing the web and visit a site using DoubleClick advertising (including some Google AdSense advertisements). This cookie is used to serve ads specific to you and your interests (“interest based targeting”).

The ads served will be targeted based on your previous browsing history. (For example, if you have viewed sites about visiting Las Vegas, you may see Las Vegas hotel advertisements when viewing a non-related site, such as on a site about hockey). DART uses “non personally identifiable information”. It does NOT track personal information about you, such as your name, email address, physical address, telephone number, social security numbers, bank account numbers or credit card numbers.

You can opt-out of this ad serving on all sites using this advertising by visiting https://www.google.com/settings/ads/onweb

You can choose to disable or selectively turn off our cookies or third-party cookies in your browser settings, or by managing preferences in programs such as Norton Internet Security. However, this can affect how you are able to interact with our site as well as other websites. This could include the inability to login to services or programs, such as logging into forums or accounts.

Deleting cookies does not mean you are permanently opted out of any advertising program. Unless you have settings that disallow cookies, the next time you visit a site running the advertisements, a new cookie will be added.

Social Media Platforms

Communication, engagement and actions taken through external social media platforms that this website and its owners take part on are custom to the terms and conditions as well as the privacy policies held with each social media platform.

Users are advised to use social media platforms wisely and communicate / engage upon them with due care and caution on their own privacy and personal details. This website nor its owners will ever ask for personal or sensitive information through social media platforms and encourage users wishing to discuss sensitive details to contact them through primary communication channels such as by email.

This website may use social sharing buttons which help share web content directly from web pages to the social media platform in question. Users are advised before using such social sharing buttons that they do so at their own discretion and note that the social media platform may track and save your request to share a web page through your social media platform account.

Shortened Links in Social Media

This website and its owners through their social media platform accounts may share web links to relevant web pages. By default some social media platforms shorten lengthy urls [web addresses] (this is an example: http://bit.ly/zyVUBo).

Users are advised to take caution and good judgement before clicking any shortened urls published on social media platforms by this website and its owners. Despite the best efforts to make sure only genuine urls are published many social media platforms are prone to spam and hacking and this website and its owners cannot be held liable for any damages or implications caused by visiting any shortened links.

Resources & Further Information