Privacy Policy


1. Introduction

Direct Hire, a division of MCI Consultants (Pty) Ltd, respects your privacy and is committed to keeping your information confidential. This privacy policy describes how we handle the personal information we collect about you and / or receive from you.

This privacy policy applies to any of our products or services which you use on any of our platforms, including our websites, mobile sites, mobile applications, emails or any other technology or service you use to access our products and services.

By using our platforms you agree to our collection and use of your information as set out in this privacy policy.

2. Definitions

Personal Information means information relating to the race, gender, sex, pregnancy, marital status, national, ethnic or social origin, colour, sexual orientation, age, physical or mental health, well-being, disability, religion, conscience, belief, culture, language and birth of the person; information relating to the education or the medical, financial, criminal or employment history of the person; any identifying number, symbol, e-mail address, physical address, telephone number, location information, online identifier or other particular assignment to the person; the biometric information of the person; the personal opinions, views or preferences of the person; correspondence sent by the person that is implicitly or explicitly of a private or confidential nature or further correspondence that would reveal the contents of the original correspondence; the views or opinions of another individual about the person; and the name of the person if it appears with other personal information relating to the person or if the disclosure of the name itself would reveal information about the person.

Special Personal Information means information relating to religious or philosophical beliefs, race or ethnic origin, trade union membership, political persuasion, health or sex life or biometric information of a data subject; or the criminal behaviour of a data subject to the extent that such information relates to (i) the alleged commission by a data subject of any offence; or (ii) any proceedings in respect of any offence allegedly committed by a data subject or the disposal of such proceedings.

Processing of personal / special personal information means the collection, receipt, recording, organisation, collation, storage, updating or modification, retrieval, alteration, consultation or use; dissemination by means of transmission, distribution or making available in any other form; or merging, linking, as well as restriction, degradation, erasure or destruction of information; POPI only kicks in when a data subjects’ personal information is being processed.

3. What information we collect and receive

We collect personal / special personal information that is necessary for us to provide you with our services as advertised. We only collect and use the minimum personal information / special personal information we need in order to provide and improve our services.

If you don't consent to the collection and storage of your personal information, please do not access or register on the sites. Before any of your personal information is used, you will be asked to consent to these terms and conditions. This is in compliance with the POPI Act. By consenting to these terms and conditions you are also consenting to us using your personal information as detailed below.

We collect and receive information you give us through direct interactions with you and when you:

  • Complete forms, sign up for an account, or subscribe or register to access or use our services.
  • Enter promotional competitions or complete surveys.
  • Post comments or content on our platforms.
  • Buy one of our products or services.
  • Contact us.

This information includes, but is not limited to the following:

  • Name and Surname;
  • Date of Birth;
  • Address and contact details including your – email address;
  • Country of residence;
  • Area or postal code;
  • Contact number;
  • Educational qualifications;
  • Employment history & references;
  • Non–personal browsing habits and click patterns; and
  • IP address.

We automatically collect and / or receive information when you use our platforms, products or services:

We may automatically collect information about your equipment and browsing actions and patterns and do this using cookies, web beacons and other technologies. A cookie is a small text file that our server sends to your hard drive when you visit our platforms. These cookies hold modest amounts of data specific to you and our platforms. They allow our system to recognise you when you visit our platforms again.

We use all features of analytics for “Display Advertisers” this allows us to collect certain information and to provide visitors (you) with tailored information upon each visit. This includes obtaining specific visitor cookie data, such as the source, medium and keyword used to visit this website. Google Analytics however does not store any visitor specific data and we will not use visitor specific data in any way related to analytics, Google Ad-words, and re-marketing. Cookies are a common part of many commercial websites that allow small text files to be sent by a website, accepted by a web browser and then placed on your hard drive as recognition for repeat visits to the site. Every time you visit this website, our servers, through cookies, pixels and/or GIF files, collect basic technical information as described.

You do not need to enable cookies to visit this website; however, some parts of this website and some services may be more difficult or impossible to use if cookies are disabled. We may also use cookies on this website to identify an index key with Our e-cards (online postcards). The web servers may also automatically identify your device by identifiers like IP or MAC addresses. We may use this information for a variety of business purposes, including to analyse trends, administer this website, track users’ and unique users' movements and gather broad demographic information for aggregate use.

We use re-marketing with Ad-words and analytics to display content specific advertisements to visitors that have previously visited this website when those visitors go to other websites that have the display network implemented.

We and other third-party vendors, including Google, use first-party cookies (such as the Google Analytics cookie) and third-party cookies together to inform, optimize, and serve ads based on visitor’s past visits to our website.

We take our users’ privacy very seriously. We feel that certain personal information should always be kept private, so we have developed restrictions around the types of ads where we don't allow re-marketing. When creating re-marketing lists, we cannot use any sensitive information about users.

As Ad-word advertisers, we are restricted from and will not perform the following actions:

a. Running ads that collect Personally Identifiable Information (PII) including, but not limited to, email addresses, telephone numbers, and credit card numbers; and

b. Creating a re-marketing list or creating ad text that specifically targets users in ways that are outlined as “prohibited” in the categories below.

Visitors / users can opt out of analytics for display advertisers and opt out of customised Google Display Network ads by visiting the Ad Preferences Manager.

We must have all rights necessary to create or otherwise obtain re-marketing lists, migrate re-marketing lists to, and use re-marketing lists or similar audience lists on the properties. Google will not allow another advertiser to use your information in the re-marketing lists or similar audiences lists without your consent.

We collect information from third-party sources:

We may receive other information about you that is publicly or commercially available and combine it with the information we have collected about or received from you in other ways. We may also receive information about you when you log into our Platforms using your social networking log-in details.

4. What we do with your information

We use the personal / special personal information we collect and receive to:

  • Enable us to provide the services offered on the sites;
  • Enable you to create personal profile on the sites and thereby access the sites;
  • Enable you to make use of the sites in the manner described on the sites, from time to time;
  • Enable other website users to find you on the sites and connect to you;
  • Communicate requested information to you, for example through user alerts;
  • Communicate information to you regularly, for example through newsletters;
  • Compile and maintain the sites and member database;
  • Register and / or authenticate users of and / or visitors to the sites;
  • Identify and take reasonable measures to prevent fraudulent uses of or access to the sites;
  • Compile non–personal statistical information about browsing habits, click patterns and access to the sites;
  • Attract advertisers by showing anonymised information about the database, for example demographics;
  • Track database size and growth; and
  • Track compliance of registrants and 3rd parties with these terms and conditions.

We also use your personal information for research and statistical purposes. The research and statistics we get from this process do not include your personal information and cannot be linked to you, nor can you be identified from these statistics.

We collect and process information about your religious beliefs, race or ethnic origin, political persuasion, health, sex life, biometric information and criminal behaviour only if you have consented to us collecting and processing this personal information and subject to the allowable exclusions specified in the applicable laws.

We will not use your personal information for any other purpose without your permission. We keep your information for as long as we need it to provide our Platforms, products or services to you, and are required or allowed by law or the contract between you and us, or you have agreed to us keeping your information.

5. Updating your information

We to keep your personally identifiable information accurate. We will provide you with access to your information, including making every effort to provide you with online access to your registration data so that you may view, update or correct your information on the website where it was submitted.

To protect your privacy and security, we will also take reasonable steps to verify your identity before granting you access or enabling you to make corrections. To access your personally identifiable information, return to the web page where you originally entered it and follow the instructions on that web page. Certain areas of our websites may limit access to specific individuals through the use of passwords.

Links to third party websites on the sites are provided solely as a convenience to you. If you use these links, you will leave our website. We have not reviewed all of these third-party sites and does not control and is not responsible for any of these sites, their content or their privacy policy. Thus, we do not endorse or make any representations about them, or any information, software or other products or materials found there, or any results that may be obtained from using them. If you decide to access any of the third-party sites linked to our websites, you do so at your own risk.

Should your personal information change or if you would like to review or delete your personal information you should do this directly on our websites through the registration section.

Further to the above, you may click here to contact us to correct or de-identify your personal information. Upon receipt of such request, we shall, as soon as is reasonably practicable:

  • Correct your personal information;
  • De-identify your personal information; and / or
  • Provide you with evidence in support of the personal information held by us.

Password and username

It is your responsibility to choose a password and to keep it safe. You agree and warrant that your username and password shall:

  • Be used for personal use only; and
  • Not be disclosed by you to any third party.

For security purposes you agree to enter the correct username and password whenever accessing your account on our websites, failing which you will be denied access.

You agree that you will be granted access to our websites once the correct username and password have been entered, irrespective of whether the use of the username and password is unauthorised or fraudulent. We cannot be held responsible for personal information being compromised due to a non-secure, disclosed or stolen password.

You agree to notify us immediately upon becoming aware of or reasonably suspecting any unauthorised access to or use of your username and password and to take steps to mitigate any resultant loss or harm.

6. Disclosing of your information

We do not sell your personal information to third parties for their marketing or any other purposes.

We provide or make your personal information available to:

  • Other companies & clients in the MCI group of companies.
  • Companies that provide services to us or on our behalf or enable us to provide services to you or operate the platforms.
  • Other parties where we are required to provide your personal information to comply with the law or protect our platforms.
  • Third parties if you have agreed to us sharing your personal information with them.
  • Other parties that provide content, advertising services or functionality on our platforms, including advertising providers which help us and our advertising customers provide advertisements that are tailored to users’ interests and understand how users respond to these advertisements, audience-measurement companies which help us measure the overall usage of our platforms and compare that usage with other online services, and social networking services such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn that enable you to register for and log into some of our services and share things you find on our platforms with your social network. These third parties may collect or receive information about your use of our platforms, including through the use of cookies, web beacons and other technologies, and this information may be collected over time and combined with information collected on various websites and online services. We do not control the privacy practices of these or any other third-party services and advise you to read the privacy policies of these services before connecting to them.

We also share our research and statistical information with various third parties. However, this information does not include your personal information, cannot be linked to you and you cannot be identified from these statistics.

Please note, some of the people or companies who have access to your personal information are located outside South Africa. We will not share your personal information with these parties unless they are bound by privacy laws and corporate rules or agreements with us that protect the privacy of your personal information and limit their ability to share your personal information with other parties.

7. Your rights

You have the right to ask us not to contact you for marketing purposes, and you can do this at any time by using any of the various “opt out” options that we always provide you with when we send you marketing communications.

We manage several separate marketing distribution lists across our various business units and opting out of one distribution list does not automatically remove you from all the other lists.

You also have the right to request access to the information we have collected about you and request that we correct or update any incorrect or incomplete information. You may at any time lodge an objection with us regarding our collection and use of your personal information.

8. Data security and storage

We have put in place administrative, technical and physical safeguards to protect your personal information and prevent loss, damage or unauthorised access to or disclosure of your information. These security safeguards are based on generally accepted information security practices and procedures which apply to the Platforms, products and services we provide. We regularly check that these safeguards are correctly implemented and continually updated in response to new risks or any identified deficiencies.

Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure and we cannot guarantee the security of information transmitted to us through the internet. Any information you submit to us through the internet is at your own risk. Once we receive your personal information, we do our best to protect it and use the security safeguards we have put in place to secure it.

If we outsource any services to a third party that require the collection or use of your personal information, we put in place contracts that require these companies or people to respect the security of your personal information, treat it in accordance with the law, and collect and use it only for the purposes authorised by us.

Security over the internet

  • No data transmission over the Internet or website can be guaranteed to be secure from intrusion. However, we maintain commercially reasonable physical, electronic and procedural safeguards to protect your personal information in accordance with data protection legislative requirements.
  • All information you provide to us is stored in the United States of America, on secure servers and accessed and used subject to our security policies and standards. Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password which enables you to access certain parts of our Website and/or Service, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential and for complying with any other security procedures that we notify you of. We ask you not to share a password with anyone.

Storage limits

  • We will retain your personal information for as long as is necessary for the processing purpose(s) for which they were collected and any other permitted linked purpose (for example certain transaction details and correspondence may be retained until the time limit for claims in respect of the transaction has expired or in order to comply with regulatory requirements regarding the retention of such data). So, if information is used for two purposes, we will retain it until the purpose with the latest period expires; but we will stop using it for the purpose with a shorter period one that period expires.
  • We restrict access to your personal information to those persons who need to use it for the relevant purpose(s). Our retention periods are based on business needs and your information that is no longer needed is either irreversibly anonymised (and the anonymised information may be retained) or securely destroyed.

9. Other website links

Our Platforms contain links to and from websites, mobile applications and / or services of third parties, advertisers and / or affiliates. Clicking on these links or enabling these connections may allow third parties to collect or share information about you. Please note, we do not control these third parties and are not responsible for the privacy practices of such other parties when you leave our Platforms. We advise you to read the privacy statements of every website you visit which collects personal information.

10. Social media

If you share our Websites or Website Content on any social media (such as LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter) your personal information (e.g. your name and the fact that you are interested in anything advertised or displayed on the Website) will be visible to all the visitors of your personal webpage on Facebook and/or Twitter. When you use social media websites the terms and conditions (including the privacy policy/ies) of such social media website/s will apply to you.

We are not responsible for the processing of personal information or the privacy policy/ies of such social media website/s. This Privacy Policy is therefore not applicable to such social media website/s.

If you disclose your personal information to a third party such as LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter, we will not be liable for any loss or damage, howsoever arising (whether direct, indirect or consequential), suffered by you as a result of the disclosure of your personal information to such third parties. This is because we do not regulate or control how such third parties use your personal information. You should always ensure that you read and understand the privacy policies of such third parties / social media website/s.

11. International users

Direct Hire is based in South Africa and, regardless of where you use or access our platforms, products or services, your information may be transferred to and maintained on servers located in South Africa or elsewhere in the world.

Any of the information that we collect about you or receive from you is stored in line with South African privacy laws, regulations and standards, which may not be equivalent to the laws in your country of residence.

12. Changes to this Privacy Policy

This version of the privacy policy was last updated on 26 November 2019 and replaces any preceding privacy policies.

We may change our Privacy Policy in our sole discretion and at any time without informing you thereof in writing and any changes we make will be posted on this page. When you use our Platforms the version of the privacy policy posted on this page applies to you. We encourage you to review this privacy policy whenever you access our Platforms.

It is your responsibility to review the Privacy Policy to which you are bound.

13. Contact us

All comments, questions, concerns or complaints regarding your personal information or this Privacy Policy, should be forwarded to us by using the contact details in the Terms and Conditions.