Privacy Notice

MelCrochet Gifted Hands is a handmade crochet business based in Johannesburg, South Africa, run by founder Melissa Ruvimbo Buchirai, who is responsible for your personal information (our Information Officer under the Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013 — POPIA).

Questions about this notice or your information: buchiemel@gmail.com or WhatsApp 067 059 0600.

Contact form. When you send a message on our contact page, we receive your name and message, plus your email address and phone number if you choose to give them. We use these only to reply to you and to help with your order or question.

WhatsApp orders and enquiries. Our “Order via WhatsApp” and custom-order buttons open WhatsApp with a message already filled in — for example the product, the colour and size you chose, and a link to the product. Nothing is sent until you press send in WhatsApp. Once you do, your conversation with us takes place on WhatsApp (operated by Meta) and is also covered by WhatsApp's own privacy policy. We use what you share there to quote, make and deliver your order.

Website analytics. We use Google Analytics to understand how visitors use the site — for example which pages and products are viewed, how people arrive, the type of device and browser, approximate location (country or city) and whether a WhatsApp or enquiry button was tapped. This helps us improve the site and see which pieces people are interested in. We never send your name, contact details or the content of your messages to Google Analytics. See Cookies and analytics below.

Technical information. Like all websites, our hosting provider automatically processes technical data such as your IP address and browser details to deliver pages securely and to protect the site from abuse (for example, limiting repeated contact-form submissions).

The shop itself does not need cookies to work. Google Analytics sets first-party cookies (named _ga and _ga_…) to recognise returning visits. We have configured it with advertising features, ad personalisation and Google signals switched off, so it is not used to show you ads.

If your browser sends a Global Privacy Control signal, we tell Google Analytics not to store analytics cookies. You can also block or delete cookies in your browser settings, or install Google's Analytics opt-out browser add-on. More about how Google uses this data: How Google uses information from sites that use its services.

Some journal stories include YouTube videos. These use YouTube's privacy-enhanced mode, so YouTube does not set cookies until you choose to play a video.

We don't sell or rent your personal information. We share it only with the service providers that run this website and our ordering, and only for that purpose: website hosting (Vercel), our database host (Railway), image hosting (Cloudinary), Google Analytics (Google), WhatsApp (Meta), and the courier you choose when we arrange delivery of your order.

Some of these providers store information on servers outside South Africa. We use established providers that protect personal information under their own data-protection terms, as POPIA requires for cross-border transfers.

We keep contact-form messages and order conversations for as long as we need them to answer you, complete your order and keep reasonable business records, and then delete them. Google Analytics data is kept for a maximum of 14 months. You can ask us to delete your information sooner (see below).

The site is served only over encrypted HTTPS, contact-form messages are stored in a password-protected database that only we can access, and we collect only what we need to help you.

Under POPIA you may ask us to:

• confirm whether we hold personal information about you, and give you a copy;
• correct or update information that is wrong or out of date;
• delete your information, where we no longer need to keep it;
• stop using your information, or object to how we use it.

Email buchiemel@gmail.com or message us on WhatsApp and we'll respond as soon as we can. If you're unhappy with how we handle your information, you may complain to the Information Regulator (South Africa).

We make pieces for babies and children, but this website is meant for adults. We don't knowingly collect personal information from children — please ask a parent or guardian to get in touch on a child's behalf.

If we change how we handle personal information, we'll update this page and the date at the top.