Privacy Policy

ClearServe is operated from South Africa. In this page, “we”, “us” and “our” mean ClearServe.

You can contact us about privacy through the request form on this website (clearserve.co.za/request-access).

There are two roles. For the information you give us to open and run your account, we are the responsible party. For the business information you put into ClearServe (orders, staff, customers’ names in notes and so on), you are the responsible party and we are your operator: we process it for you, under your instructions, and keep it secure.

• When you ask for a trial: your name, business name, email address, phone number (if you give it) and anything you tell us about your business.
• For accounts: names, email addresses, roles and passwords. Passwords are stored only in scrambled (hashed) form, so we cannot read them. If you turn on two-step sign-in we store an encrypted authenticator secret and hashed recovery codes.
• Business records you create: menus and prices, orders and order notes (which may include a customer’s first name or a pick-up time), payment amounts and methods, refunds, cash-up counts, stock, recipes, expenses and reports.
• Security and technical records: sign-in attempts (including the IP address when it is available), a record of important actions such as discounts, refunds and price changes, and error reports with passwords and other secrets removed.

We do not collect card numbers. ClearServe records that a card payment happened and its amount, not the card details.

• To set up, run and support your account and the service you asked for.
• To keep the service and your business’s information secure, and to prevent fraud and abuse.
• To contact you about your trial, your account and important changes.
• To meet our legal obligations.

We do not sell personal information, use it for advertising, or build profiles of your customers.

Only people you give a sign-in to see your business’s information, and only what their role allows. Every business is kept separate from every other. Our own staff and operators can see account details such as the business name, owner, plan and last activity, and may look at your data when needed to give support or keep things secure.

We use a small number of service providers to run ClearServe:

• A hosting provider that runs our server in Johannesburg, South Africa, where your data is stored.
• A cloud storage provider for encrypted backups. Backups are scrambled before they leave our server, so the provider cannot read them. This provider may store them outside South Africa.
• An email service, to send things like password-reset links, when we switch it on.
• An error-monitoring service, if we switch it on, which receives technical error details with personal information and secrets removed.

Where personal information goes to another country, we make sure it is protected, for example by encrypting it first, as POPIA requires. We may also share information if the law or a court requires it.

• Everything travels over encrypted connections (HTTPS).
• Passwords are hashed, sign-in is limited after repeated wrong attempts, and sessions expire. Two-step sign-in is available to everyone and required for our operators.
• Each business’s data is separated inside the database itself, not just in the application.
• Backups are encrypted, and each update to the service is tested and can be rolled back.
• Important actions are recorded in an audit log.

No system is perfectly secure. If we learn that personal information has been accessed without permission, we will tell the people affected and the Information Regulator as the law requires.

We keep information while your account is active. After an account ends we keep it available for you to export for about 30 days and then delete it, except where we must keep records by law. Copies in backups are removed as those backups age out. Trial applications that are not taken forward are deleted after a reasonable period.

We use one essential cookie to keep you signed in. It is needed for the service to work. We do not use advertising or tracking cookies.

You may ask us whether we hold personal information about you, to see it, to correct it, to delete it, or to object to how it is used. Write to us through the request form on this website (clearserve.co.za/request-access). If the information is part of a business’s records, we may need to ask that business, because it decides how it is used.

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information, you may complain to the Information Regulator of South Africa (inforegulator.org.za). We would appreciate the chance to put things right first.

ClearServe is for businesses and their staff. It is not meant for people under 18, and we do not knowingly collect their information.

We may update this policy and will change the “last updated” date when we do. See also our Terms of Service.