Access to information manual

1. The private body

What the business does. We operate web-based software that helps small and medium South African businesses prepare responsive bids for public-sector tenders: storing their compliance documents and tracking expiry dates, reading published bid documents, checking a bid against what the document requires, filling MBD and SBD forms, and assembling an indexed submission pack.

2. The Information Officer

All requests under PAIA, and all requests, objections and complaints under POPIA, go to the Information Officer at the address above. No deputy information officer has been designated; the business is small enough that the head deals with these personally.

3. The guide published by the Information Regulator (section 10)

Section 10 of PAIA requires the Information Regulator to publish a guide, in each official language, explaining how to use the Act. It tells a requester in plain terms what their rights are, how to make a request to a public or a private body, and what to do if a request is refused.

The guide is available free of charge from the Information Regulator:

• Website: inforegulator.org.za
• Email: PAIAComplaints@inforegulator.org.za or enquiries@inforegulator.org.za
• Post: PO Box 31533, Braamfontein, Johannesburg, 2017
• In person: JD House, 27 Stiemens Street, Braamfontein, Johannesburg, 2001

If you cannot obtain it from the Regulator, ask us and we will send you a copy.

4. Records available without a formal request

No notice has been published in respect of this body under section 52(2) of PAIA. Nevertheless, the following are available to anyone, free, without a PAIA request:

• Our Terms of Service, Privacy Notice, Refund Policy and Supplier Disclosure.
• Our published price list, including what each plan includes and excludes.
• This manual.
• Your own data. If you have an account, everything you have put in and everything the software has produced for you can be exported as a ZIP from inside the product, at any time, with no request, no fee and no reason. That is faster than PAIA and we would rather you used it.

5. Records available in terms of other legislation

Certain records are accessible in terms of other laws, on the terms those laws set, rather than through this manual:

• Companies Act 71 of 2008 — company records, and the records the Act makes available through the CIPC
• Tax Administration Act 28 of 2011, Income Tax Act 58 of 1962 and Value-Added Tax Act 89 of 1991
• Basic Conditions of Employment Act 75 of 1997 and Labour Relations Act 66 of 1995
• Unemployment Insurance Act 63 of 2001 and Unemployment Insurance Contributions Act 4 of 2002
• Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act 130 of 1993
• Skills Development Levies Act 9 of 1999
• Occupational Health and Safety Act 85 of 1993
• Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013
• Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002 and Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008
• Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Act 53 of 2003

6. Subjects and categories of records we hold

Listing a category here does not mean access to it will be granted; some of it is protected by the grounds of refusal in clause 13, particularly records belonging to our customers.

7. Personal information we process (section 51(1)(f))

Set out in full in our Privacy Notice. In summary:

8. Asking us to correct or delete information, or objecting to processing

• Correction or deletion — section 24 of POPIA. Use Form 2 prescribed by the POPIA Regulations, 2018, or simply write to the Information Officer setting out what is wrong and what it should say. Most of it you can also fix or delete yourself inside the product.
• Objection to processing — section 11(3). Use Form 1 prescribed by those Regulations, or write to the Information Officer.
• Access to your own personal information — section 23. Ask the Information Officer; where it is your own data in your own account, the export function gives it to you immediately and free.

There is no charge for a correction, deletion or objection. We respond within 30 days, and we will confirm in writing what we did.

9. If you believe we have not complied with POPIA

You may:

• raise it with the Information Officer first — we would rather fix it than be told about it by a regulator;
• submit a complaint to the Information Regulator in terms of section 74, using Form 5 of the POPIA Regulations, sent to POPIAComplaints@inforegulator.org.za;
• institute civil proceedings for damages in a court of competent jurisdiction in terms of section 99, whether or not there was intent or negligence.

10. How to make a request for access to a record

1. Complete Form 02 prescribed by the Regulations Relating to the Promotion of Access to Information, 2021 — the form for a request to a private body. It is available from inforegulator.org.za, and we will email it to you on request.
2. Send it to the Information Officer at admin@countpilot.co.za, or by post or by hand to the addresses in clause 2.
3. The form must give: enough detail for us to identify the record and to identify you; the form of access you want; an address, email or fax at which we can reach you; whether you want to be told of the decision in any other manner, and the necessary particulars; and, if you are asking on behalf of someone else, proof of your authority.
4. Say which right you are exercising and why the record is required to exercise or protect it. Section 50 of PAIA gives a right of access to a record of a private body only where the record is required for the exercise or protection of a right. A request that does not say this cannot be granted, and this is the single most common reason a request to a private body fails.
5. Pay the request fee (clause 11), where one is payable.

If you cannot read or write, or have a disability that prevents you from completing the form, tell the Information Officer and we will take your request verbally and complete the form for you, then give you a copy.

11. Fees

• A request fee is payable by a requester other than a personal requester, before the request is processed. Under the current PAIA Regulations that fee is R50.00. It is not refundable, even if access is later refused.
• A personal requester — someone asking for a record containing their own personal information — pays no request fee.
• Access fees are payable before a record is handed over, for reproduction, search and preparation, at the rates prescribed in the Regulations as amended from time to time. We deliberately do not reprint those rates here, because a stale fee schedule published as fact is worse than a pointer to the current one; we will send you the applicable schedule with our acknowledgement of your request.
• Where searching for and preparing a record is likely to take more than the prescribed number of hours, we may require a deposit against the access fee, as the Regulations allow.
• We will tell you the total before you commit to anything, and you may withdraw the request at that point.

12. Our decision, and how long it takes

• We decide within 30 days of receiving a request that complies with clause 10, and notify you in writing of the decision, the fees payable and your rights if we refuse.
• That period may be extended by a further 30 days in the circumstances allowed by section 26 — for example where the request is for a large number of records — and we will tell you in writing, with reasons, before the first 30 days end.
• If we fail to decide within the period, the request is regarded as having been refused (section 58).
• Where a record contains information about a third party, section 71 requires us to notify that third party and give them an opportunity to make representations before we decide. That takes time and we will tell you when it applies.

13. Grounds on which access may be refused

PAIA requires or permits refusal in the following cases, among others:

• Section 63 — unreasonable disclosure of personal information about a third party who is a natural person. This is the ground most likely to apply here, because much of what we hold is our customers' identity documents and director details.
• Section 64 — commercial information of a third party: trade secrets, financial or commercial information likely to cause harm, or information supplied in confidence in a tender process.
• Section 65 — information supplied in confidence, where disclosure would be an actionable breach of a duty of confidence.
• Section 66 — safety of individuals, or the protection of property.
• Section 67 — records privileged from production in legal proceedings.
• Section 68 — our own commercial information: trade secrets, financial or commercial information likely to harm us, or information whose disclosure would put us at a disadvantage in negotiations or in competition.
• Section 69 — research information of a third party or of the body.
• Section 70 — the public interest override: access must nevertheless be granted where the record would reveal a substantial contravention of the law or an imminent and serious public safety or environmental risk, and the public interest in disclosure clearly outweighs the harm.

Where part of a record may be refused, we grant access to the rest of it (section 28).

14. If we refuse

There is no internal appeal against a decision of a private body. Your remedies are:

• a complaint to the Information Regulator in terms of section 77A, on the prescribed form, within 180 days of the decision; or
• an application to a court in terms of section 78, within 30 days of the decision, or of the Regulator's decision on a complaint.

We will say in our written decision which of these applies, and by when.

15. Availability of this manual

This manual is available free of charge:

• on this website at https://tpe.countpilot.co.za/legal/paia;
• at our physical address, on request during business hours;
• by email from the Information Officer;
• from the Information Regulator.

If you need it in another format because of a disability, ask and we will provide it in a reasonable alternative form. The manual is reviewed at least once a year, and whenever the business changes in a way that affects it.

16. The Information Regulator

Details current at the date of this manual; check inforegulator.org.za for any change.

The Information Regulator (South Africa)
JD House, 27 Stiemens Street, Braamfontein, Johannesburg, 2001
PO Box 31533, Braamfontein, Johannesburg, 2017
General enquiries: enquiries@inforegulator.org.za
PAIA complaints: PAIAComplaints@inforegulator.org.za
POPIA complaints: POPIAComplaints@inforegulator.org.za