What this site collects, and what happens to it

Who is responsible for your information

Side Hustle Hub is responsible for the information you send through this site. Under POPIA that makes it the responsible party: the one who decides what is collected and why, and who answers for it. Every privacy question or request comes to the same place:

• Email: aitradingmentor@proton.me
• Or: the Ask & Report form on the home page

What we collect, form by form

Ask & Report (home page)

• Whether it is a question or a scam report
• Your message
• Your email address, only if you add it. It is optional, and it is only there so we can reply.

New-guide notifications (bottom of each field guide)

• Your email address

That is the full list. We do not ask for your name, phone number, ID number, address or location, and you do not need to give them. Please leave them out of a message unless they are needed.

Every field is voluntary. Leave the email off the Ask & Report form and we simply cannot reply. Leave it off the notification form and you will not get notifications. Nothing else on the site changes either way: every guide and blueprint stays open to you.

What we collect without you typing anything

• No cookies of our own, no advertising, no tracking. The site sets no cookies, has no advertising or social-media trackers, and does not build a profile of you.
• A visit count. We use Cloudflare Web Analytics to count page views and check the pages load quickly. It uses no cookies, stores nothing on your device, and does not identify you or follow you to other sites. We see totals, such as "30 page views this month", never who.
• Security. Cloudflare delivers the site and blocks attacks and automated abuse. To do that it handles your IP address and basic browser details with each request, and it may set a short-lived security cookie (for example cf_clearance or __cf_bm) to tell people apart from bots. We cannot read those cookies and do not use them for anything. Our dashboard shows traffic totals and, for security, which addresses are sending unusual volumes of requests. We use that only to protect the site.

Why we use it

• Ask & Report: to read your question or report, reply if you gave an email, check scam reports and warn others, and decide what the next guide should cover. You chose to send it to us for those purposes, and answering questions and warning people about scams is the reason this site exists.
• Notifications: to email you when a new field guide or blueprint goes up. No newsletter, no promotions, nothing sold. This rests on your consent, which you give by submitting the form and can withdraw at any time.
• Visit counting and security: to keep the site running, safe and fast.

We do not sell, rent or trade personal information. We do not use it for advertising, and no decision about you is made by a computer.

Who else handles it

Three services carry information for us. Each one handles it only so the site and its forms work.

• FormSubmit (formsubmit.co) delivers what you type into a form to our inbox, by email. Its privacy policy says it uses form information only to deliver it and does not pass it to anyone else unless the law requires it. It does not say which country its servers are in.
• Proton Mail (Proton AG, Switzerland) is the inbox your message lands in. Notification emails are sent from the same inbox, and your address is never shown to other people on the list.
• Cloudflare (Cloudflare, Inc., United States, with servers worldwide) hosts and delivers the site, protects it and counts visits.

Nobody else receives your information. We would hand it over only if South African law required it, such as under a court order.

Information sent outside South Africa

All three services are based outside South Africa, so what you type into a form leaves the country when you press submit. Switzerland has data protection law of a standard comparable to POPIA. Cloudflare is bound by its published data protection terms. FormSubmit's policy is short and names no country. By submitting a form you agree to this transfer. If you would rather not, you can still use everything on the site without the forms.

How long we keep it

• Ask & Report messages: deleted within 12 months of being dealt with, or sooner if you ask. If a scam report leads to a published warning, the warning keeps the details of the scam, not yours.
• Notification emails: kept until you unsubscribe, then removed within 7 days. If we stop sending notifications, the list is deleted.
• Security and visit data: held by Cloudflare under its own retention rules. We do not export it or keep copies.

How we protect it

• The site stores nothing itself. There is no database, no accounts and no login, so there is nothing on the site to break into.
• Every page and form uses an encrypted (HTTPS) connection.
• Messages go to one private inbox that only the person who runs this site can open. Proton Mail stores mail encrypted.
• If we ever learn that your information has been exposed, we will tell you (if we have your email) and the Information Regulator, as POPIA requires.

Your rights, and how to use them

Under POPIA you can:

• ask whether we hold any information about you, and get a copy of it, free;
• have it corrected, or deleted;
• object to us using it, or withdraw your consent, at any time;
• complain to the Information Regulator (details below).

How: email aitradingmentor@proton.me with "Privacy request" in the subject. Say which form you used and roughly when. We will reply within 30 days. Before sending you anything we hold, we may ask you to confirm the request from the same email address, so that nobody else can get your information by pretending to be you.

To stop notifications: reply to any notification email and ask. You will be removed within 7 days.

Children

The guides are written for adults. If you are under 18, please get a parent's or guardian's OK before sending us any personal information. If we find we hold a child's details without that, we will delete them.

Complaints

If something here is wrong or you are unhappy with how your information was handled, tell us first if you are willing and we will fix it. You do not have to, though. You can go straight to the Information Regulator:

Changes to this notice

If this notice changes, the date at the top changes with it. If a change affects how we use an email address you have already given us, we will email you before it applies.