Privacy policy

FFREEDOM is a product of 1st Group Capital (Pty) Ltd, an authorised financial services provider with FSP licence number 49632. 1st Group Capital is the responsible party for the personal information processed through this website, as contemplated in the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (POPIA).

Questions about this policy, or any request relating to your personal information, can be sent to our information officer through the contact page.

Information you give us: your name, email address, phone number and message when you submit the advisory, contact, advertising, report or lead-capture forms; your email address when you subscribe to the newsletter; your name, email and comment text when you comment on an article.

Information collected automatically: pages viewed, reading progress, referring page, approximate region, device type and browser. Reading measurement uses a rotating, salted hash rather than a stored identifier, so we count sessions without building a profile of you.

Account information: if you are a member of the newsroom team, your email address, display name and assigned role.

To answer enquiries and arrange advisory sessions you asked for — performance of a contract or steps taken at your request.

To send the newsletter and confirmation emails — your consent, which you may withdraw at any time using the unsubscribe link.

To measure readership, detect spam and abuse, keep the site secure and improve the publication — our legitimate interests, balanced against your rights.

To meet legal, regulatory and FAIS record-keeping obligations.

Strictly necessary cookies always run: they keep your session, protect against abuse and remember your cookie choice. Analytics (Google Analytics) and advertising (Google AdSense) only load after you allow that category. Before you decide, consent signals are set to denied and no analytics or advertising script is placed.

You can change or withdraw your choice at any time using the cookie preferences link in the footer, or through your browser settings.

Service providers that operate the publication on our behalf: our hosting and database provider, our transactional email provider, Google Analytics and Google AdSense. Each processes information only on our instructions or under its own published terms.

Accredited financial services representatives, but only when you explicitly ask for an advisory session or submit an enquiry intended for them.

Regulators, auditors or law enforcement where we are legally required to disclose.

We never sell your personal information.

Some of our providers process data outside South Africa. Where that happens we rely on providers who are bound by laws or contractual terms that offer protection substantially similar to POPIA.

Enquiry, advisory and lead submissions: five years from the last interaction, in line with FAIS record keeping.

Newsletter subscriptions: until you unsubscribe, plus a suppression record so we do not email you again.

Comments: for as long as the article is published, unless you ask us to remove them.

Technical logs and error records: twelve months.

Aggregate readership statistics: retained indefinitely because they no longer identify anyone.

Access to the newsroom dashboard requires an account, and database access is enforced row by row so staff only reach the records their role permits. Data is encrypted in transit, secrets are stored outside the codebase, and public forms are validated and rate-limited against abuse.

You may ask what we hold about you, ask us to correct or delete it, object to processing based on legitimate interests, and withdraw consent for marketing or cookies at any time.

Send requests through the contact page. We respond within a reasonable period, and we may ask you to verify your identity first.

If you are not satisfied with our response you may complain to the Information Regulator (South Africa) at enquiries@inforegulator.org.za.

The publication is written for adults. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 18 without the consent of a competent person. If you believe we have, contact us and we will delete it.

We update this policy when our processing changes. The version published on this page is the version that applies, and material changes will also re-trigger the cookie notice.