In and Around — Privacy Policy
Effective date: 15 September 2026 · Last updated: 15 September 2026
1. About this Privacy Policy
This Privacy Policy explains how In and Around collects, uses, stores, shares and protects personal information when you use our website, mobile/PWA experience and related services.
In and Around is operated from South Africa and this policy is intended to reflect the principles of the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (“POPIA”).
POPIA establishes minimum requirements for lawful processing of personal information and rights relating to the protection of personal information.
- Responsible party/operator:
- Sekonyela Mokoena
- Privacy contact:
- sekonyelacm@gmail.com
2. Information we collect
The information we process depends on which features you use.
Account information
When you authenticate with Google, we may receive information required to establish your account, such as your Google account identifier, name, email address and profile image where supplied.
We do not receive your Google password.
Profile and app activity
We may process information relating to your In and Around profile and activity, including saved places, saved/interested events, preferences generated from those actions, reminder selections and account settings.
Reviews and public contributions
If you submit a review, rating, event, correction, feedback, photo or other community contribution, we process the information necessary to receive, moderate and display that submission.
Content you intentionally publish may be visible to other users.
Location information
If you choose to use a feature such as Near Me, your device may provide geographic coordinates to the app.
We do not require location permission for ordinary browsing.
We do not intend to continuously track your location.
Location used for nearby discovery can be processed transiently to calculate distances rather than being used to build a history of your movements.
Weather-aware event reminders use the event or venue's location, not your precise personal location.
Notification information
If you enable push notifications, we process the technical push-subscription information required to deliver notifications, including a push endpoint and cryptographic subscription keys.
These values are used for notification delivery.
Feedback
If you send feedback, we may process the feedback category, message, optional contact information and limited technical context such as app version, route and browser/platform information where implemented.
We do not intentionally attach passwords, authentication tokens or precise location to feedback reports.
Technical information
Like most online services, our hosting and infrastructure providers may process limited technical information needed to operate and secure the Platform, such as request information, IP addresses, user-agent/browser information, timestamps and security logs.
3. Why we process personal information
We process information where reasonably necessary to provide and secure your account, authenticate you, provide requested features, remember saves and interests, personalise discovery using ordinary app activity, deliver reminders you request, operate location-based features with permission, moderate contributions, respond to feedback, prevent abuse, maintain security, satisfy legal obligations and improve the service.
POPIA principles include processing information for specific and legitimate purposes and protecting that information against unauthorised access, loss and misuse.
4. Personalised discovery
In and Around may use ordinary Platform activity to personalise event recommendations.
Signals may include events you save, places you save, event categories you show interest in, venue relationships, upcoming-event relevance and optional proximity information.
We do not intend to infer sensitive characteristics such as race, religion, political views, health conditions or sexual orientation for recommendation purposes.
Our current recommendation approach is rules-based and explainable rather than an LLM profiling system.
5. Location permission
Location permission is optional and is requested only when a feature requiring location needs it.
You can refuse or revoke location permission using your browser or device controls.
If you refuse permission, you can continue browsing events and places, although location-dependent features may be unavailable.
6. Notifications and reminders
Notifications are optional.
If you enable an event reminder, we store the information required to determine when that reminder should be sent.
We may enrich an event reminder with weather information based on the event venue's coordinates.
If weather information is unavailable, the ordinary event reminder may still be sent.
You can disable reminders and control browser/device notification permissions.
7. Public reviews and contributions
Content you intentionally submit for publication may be visible publicly or to other Platform users.
Your displayed profile information may be associated with your contribution while your account remains active.
If you permanently delete your account, public contributions that we retain are anonymised and will no longer be linked to your account.
A retained review may identify the author simply as “Deleted user.”
8. Who we use to provide the service
In and Around relies on technology providers to operate the Platform.
At present these may include Google for authentication, Supabase for database/authentication/storage infrastructure, Render for application hosting, Open-Meteo for weather information, and mapping/open-data providers where map functionality is used.
These providers may process information as necessary to provide their respective services and are subject to their own terms and privacy arrangements.
We do not sell your personal information to advertisers.
If advertising or promoted content is introduced, we will not give an advertiser unrestricted access to user-account information merely because it purchases an advertisement.
9. International processing
Some technology service providers may process or store information outside South Africa.
Where personal information is transferred across borders, we intend to handle such transfers in accordance with applicable POPIA requirements and appropriate safeguards.
POPIA expressly regulates cross-border flows of personal information.
10. How long we keep information
We retain personal information only for as long as reasonably necessary for the purpose for which it is processed, subject to legitimate operational, security and legal requirements.
Account data remains while your account is active unless there is a reason or legal obligation requiring a different retention period.
Security and operational records may be retained for a reasonable period for fraud prevention, system integrity, debugging and legal compliance.
11. Account deletion and the 7-day grace period
You can request account deletion through:
Profile → Account settings → Danger zone → Delete account
When you confirm deletion, your account is scheduled for permanent deletion and you are signed out.
A 7-day grace period applies.
If you sign in again before the deletion deadline, you will be shown a deletion-pending screen. You may cancel the request and restore normal access or sign out and allow deletion to continue.
Once the deletion deadline has passed, your account becomes eligible for permanent deletion. Because the deletion process is executed by a scheduled system, completion may occur after the exact deadline but will not intentionally take place before it.
12. What is deleted
When permanent account deletion completes, private account information associated with the account is removed through our account-deletion process.
This includes account/profile information and private user-specific records such as saved events, saved places, reminders, push subscriptions and similar private account state, subject to any retention required by law.
The authentication account and associated authentication identity are also removed.
13. What may be anonymised instead of deleted
Public community content can remain useful after the account that created it has been removed.
Public content such as reviews, ratings and qualifying accepted public contributions may therefore be retained after being irreversibly anonymised.
The link to the deleted user's account is removed and the content must no longer identify that person through the former account.
We do not maintain a hidden reversible identity mapping solely to reconnect anonymised public contributions to a deleted account.
14. Security
We use reasonable technical and organisational measures designed to protect information from unauthorised access, loss, misuse or disclosure.
Those measures include authenticated access controls, database row-level access controls, restricted administrative functionality, server-side privilege checks and HTTPS encryption in transit where applicable.
No internet-based service can guarantee absolute security.
Where a personal-information security compromise occurs, applicable POPIA obligations may require notification to the Information Regulator and affected data subjects.
15. Your privacy rights
Subject to applicable law, you may have rights to request confirmation of whether we hold personal information about you, request access to that information, request correction or deletion, object to certain processing, withdraw consent where processing depends on consent and lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator.
South African public guidance recognises rights including obtaining information about processing, correcting information and requesting deletion in appropriate circumstances.
Requests can be sent to: sekonyelacm@gmail.com
We may need to verify your identity before acting on a request.
16. Direct marketing
We will not send unsolicited electronic direct marketing in a manner inconsistent with applicable law.
POPIA places specific restrictions on unsolicited electronic direct marketing and requires mechanisms for consent or permitted existing-customer marketing and an opportunity to object.
Ordinary transactional messages you request, such as an event reminder, are different from advertising messages.
17. Children
In and Around is not currently designed as a service specifically directed at young children.
If features specifically targeting children are introduced, additional privacy and consent measures may be required.
We do not intentionally use the Platform to solicit sensitive information from children.
This clause should be reviewed before launch if you intend to permit children under 18 to create accounts.
18. Third-party websites
Links to third-party event organisers, venues, ticketing websites or other services take you outside In and Around.
Their privacy practices are governed by their own policies.
We recommend reviewing those policies before providing them with personal information.
19. Changes to this Privacy Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy as the Platform and legal requirements change.
The current version and update date will remain available through:
Account settings → Legal → Privacy Policy
Material changes may also be brought to users' attention through the Platform where appropriate.
20. Complaints and contact
For privacy questions or requests:
- In and Around
- Privacy contact:
- sekonyelacm@gmail.com
- Operator:
- Sekonyela Mokoena
- South Africa
You may also have the right to lodge a complaint with South Africa's Information Regulator concerning alleged interference with the protection of your personal information. POPIA established the Information Regulator as the relevant supervisory body.