Privacy Policy

Cecile Pro — Professional Legal Research Platform

Effective date: 15 April 2026 · Operated by Seekefy (Pty) Ltd, South Africa

This Privacy Policy explains how Seekefy (Pty) Ltd collects, uses, stores, and protects your personal information when you use Cecile Pro. It is drafted in compliance with the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (POPIA).

1. Responsible Party

The responsible party for your personal information, as defined in POPIA, is:

Seekefy (Pty) Ltd
Republic of South Africa
Email: support@seekefy.com
Website: seekefy.com

2. What Personal Information We Collect

Information you provide

Category	Examples	When collected
Account information	Email address, password (hashed)	At registration
Payment information	Billing name, last 4 digits of card (via PayFast — we do not store full card numbers)	At subscription
WhatsApp number	Phone number with country code	If you register for WhatsApp Pro access (optional)
Research queries	Legal questions and prompts you submit	During use
Uploaded documents	PDF case files you upload for analysis	During use (session only)

Information collected automatically

Category	Examples
Usage data	Pages visited, queries submitted, features used, session duration
Device data	Browser type, operating system, screen resolution
Log data	IP address, timestamps, HTTP request logs (retained for security purposes)
Analytics	Aggregated usage statistics via Google Analytics 4 (anonymised where possible)

3. How We Use Your Personal Information

We use your personal information for the following purposes:

To provide the service — authenticate your account, process your queries, generate research outputs, and deliver features you have requested.
To manage billing — process subscription payments through PayFast and send payment receipts.
To communicate with you — send service-related emails (account confirmation, subscription changes, support responses). We do not send marketing emails without your consent.
To improve the platform — analyse usage patterns (in aggregated, anonymised form) to improve features and performance.
To ensure security — detect and prevent fraud, abuse, and unauthorised access.
To comply with legal obligations — retain records as required by applicable South African law.

We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal information to third parties for marketing purposes.

We do not use your research queries to train external models. Queries may be logged for security and quality monitoring purposes in anonymised form.

4. Legal Basis for Processing (POPIA)

We process your personal information on the following lawful grounds under POPIA:

Performance of a contract — processing necessary to provide the service you have subscribed to;
Legitimate interest — security monitoring, fraud prevention, and platform improvement (where this does not override your rights);
Legal compliance — where we are required to process data by law;
Consent — for optional features such as WhatsApp integration and marketing communications.

5. Third-Party Service Providers

We share personal information with third-party processors only where necessary to provide the service. All processors are contractually required to handle your data securely and not use it for their own purposes.

Provider	Purpose	Location
Amazon Web Services (AWS)	Cloud infrastructure, database (DynamoDB), Lambda functions	EU (Stockholm — eu-north-1)
PayFast	Payment processing and subscription billing	South Africa
Google Analytics 4	Anonymised usage analytics	United States (data anonymised before transfer)
Anthropic / OpenAI	Language model inference for query responses	United States
Meta (WhatsApp Business API)	WhatsApp message delivery (optional feature only)	United States

Where personal information is processed outside South Africa, we take steps to ensure adequate protection consistent with POPIA, including relying on the providers' security certifications and data processing agreements.

6. Data Storage and Security

Your account information and research history are stored in AWS DynamoDB in the EU (Stockholm) region. We implement the following measures to protect your data:

Encryption at rest and in transit (TLS 1.2+);
JWT-based authentication with server-side validation;
Passwords stored as bcrypt hashes — we cannot recover your plain-text password;
Access to production systems restricted to authorised personnel only;
Regular security reviews.

Uploaded PDF documents are processed in memory during your session and are not stored permanently on our servers.

Despite these measures, no system is completely secure. If we become aware of a data breach that affects your rights, we will notify you and the Information Regulator as required by POPIA.

7. Data Retention

Data type	Retention period
Account information	Until you delete your account, plus 30 days for backup recovery
Research history	Active account lifetime; deleted on account closure
Payment records	5 years (as required for financial record-keeping under South African law)
Server log data (IP, timestamps)	90 days
Uploaded PDF documents	Session duration only — not persisted
WhatsApp number	Until you remove it or close your account

8. Your Rights Under POPIA

As a data subject under POPIA, you have the following rights:

Right of access — request a copy of the personal information we hold about you;
Right to correction — request that inaccurate or incomplete information be corrected;
Right to deletion — request deletion of your personal information, subject to our legal retention obligations;
Right to object — object to processing based on legitimate interest;
Right to withdraw consent — where processing is based on consent, you may withdraw at any time without affecting lawfulness of prior processing;
Right to complain — lodge a complaint with the South African Information Regulator at inforeg.org.za.

To exercise any of these rights, contact us at support@seekefy.com. We will respond within 30 days.

9. Cookies and Tracking

Cecile Pro uses the following:

localStorage (browser storage) — to remember your login session and theme preference. This is essential for the platform to function.
Google Analytics 4 cookies — to collect anonymised usage statistics. You may opt out via Google's opt-out tool.

We do not use tracking cookies for advertising or cross-site profiling.

10. Children

Cecile Pro is intended for users aged 18 and over. We do not knowingly collect personal information from persons under 18. If you believe a minor has registered, please contact us at support@seekefy.com and we will delete the account promptly.

11. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make material changes, we will notify you by email or by a prominent notice on the platform at least 14 days before the changes take effect.

The effective date at the top of this page will always reflect the most recent version.

12. Contact and Information Officer

For any privacy-related queries, requests, or complaints:

Seekefy (Pty) Ltd — Information Officer
Email: support@seekefy.com
Republic of South Africa

You also have the right to complain to the Information Regulator of South Africa:

Website: www.justice.gov.za/inforeg/
Email: inforeg@justice.gov.za