Legal
Privacy policy.
What I collect when you visit this site or write to me, why I hold it, and how to have it changed or deleted. Plain language, because a policy you cannot read protects nobody.
01
Who this policy covers
This site belongs to Angela Pereira, a non-medical hypnotherapist practising as Angela Hypnosis at 34 The Broads Street, Mulbarton, Johannesburg South, 2059. I am a one-person practice, which means I am also the person answerable for your information under the Protection of Personal Information Act, 4 of 2013 (POPIA). Nobody else handles it on my behalf.
It covers this website, the contact form on it, and messages you send me by email, telephone or WhatsApp. It also covers the notes I keep about sessions, because those matter most and deserve saying out loud rather than leaving to be assumed.
02
What I collect
When you fill in the contact form
Your name and email address, which I need in order to reply. Then only what you choose to add: a phone or WhatsApp number, what brought you here, whether you would rather meet in person or online, and whatever you write in the message box. The form works without any of the optional parts.
When you write, call or message
Whatever your message contains, and the address or number it came from so I can answer. WhatsApp conversations live inside WhatsApp, which is run by Meta under its own terms that I have no power to change. If that matters to you, email is the quieter door.
When you are only reading
The web host records ordinary technical detail on every visit: which pages were asked for, when, from which kind of browser, and a shortened form of the network address. That is how a page gets delivered and how real readers get told apart from automated traffic. If you have agreed to it, the site also counts which writing gets read.
What never comes near this site
No payment details. Fees are settled directly, in person or by transfer, and nothing about money passes through these pages. There is no account to open and no password to keep safe.
03
Why I hold it
Two reasons, and POPIA calls them lawful grounds.
- Because you asked me to. Sending a message is a request for a reply, and I cannot reply without keeping what you sent for as long as answering takes.
- Because a practice has to keep records. Once we have worked together I keep a short record of the work itself. That is part of practising responsibly, not something done for marketing.
I do not sell information and never have. I do not send marketing unless you ticked the box asking for it, and every note I send carries a way to stop them.
04
Session notes and health information
What you tell me in a session is the most private thing on this page, and POPIA treats information about a person's health as a special category needing extra care. So, plainly:
- Notes are brief and written for me. They record what we worked on and what to pick up next, not a transcript of your life.
- They live apart from this website. Nothing said in a session is stored on the site, in the form, or in anything that counts visitors.
- They go to no medical aid, employer, family member or anyone else without your written say-so.
- The one exception is the one every practitioner carries: if I believe a person is in immediate danger, or the law compels me through a court, I may have to act. If that ever happened I would tell you.
Hypnotherapy at this practice is non-medical and does not replace medical, psychological or psychiatric treatment. Whether you tell your doctor you are seeing me is entirely your choice.
06
How long I keep it
- An enquiry that does not become a session: deleted within twelve months.
- Session notes, where we did work together: kept for five years after our last session, then destroyed.
- Marketing consent: until you withdraw it.
- Server logs: rolled over within a few months as a matter of course.
If you would like something gone sooner, ask. Unless a record I am obliged to keep says otherwise, it goes.
08
Your rights
POPIA gives you every one of these, and you do not owe me a reason for using any of them.
- Ask what I hold about you, and receive a copy of it.
- Have anything inaccurate corrected.
- Have it deleted, unless it sits inside a record I am obliged to keep.
- Object to the way I am using it.
- Withdraw a consent you gave, marketing included, whenever you like.
- Complain to the Information Regulator if you believe I have handled it badly.
Write to hello@angelahypnosis.co.za and I will answer inside thirty days, which is the period POPIA allows me. In practice most requests take a day.
09
People under 18
I see clients under 18 only with the written consent of a parent or guardian, and that same consent covers their information. The contact form is not meant for a child to fill in alone.
10
Information held outside South Africa
Website hosting, email and analytics are commonly run on servers beyond our borders. Where that is the case, the provider must offer protection comparable to POPIA, whether through its own binding rules or because it operates under a law of similar standard. Session notes do not travel. They stay in South Africa, with me.
11
Changes to this policy
If this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it. A change affecting how I use what you have already given me will be said plainly rather than slipped in, and where fresh consent is needed I will come back and ask.
12
Asking, correcting, complaining
Come to me first
Angela Pereira, Information Officer for this practice.
- hello@angelahypnosis.co.za
- WhatsApp +27 73 808 8741
- 34 The Broads Street, Mulbarton, Johannesburg South, 2059
If you would rather not
You may complain directly to the Information Regulator of South Africa. Their current contact details are published at inforegulator.org.za.