Legal
Privacy Policy
Last updated: October 2026
This policy applies to peleza.co.za and any associated services operated by Tselapele Talent (Pty) Ltd under the Pele ZA brand.
1. Who we are
This policy is issued by Tselapele Talent (Pty) Ltd, trading as Pele ZA (registration number 2026/791490/07), the South African company that operates Pele ZA. It is the responsible party for your personal information under POPIA: it decides why and how your information is processed, and it answers to you for that. The Pele ZA platform is built, hosted and maintained by LEVERWARE (Pty) Ltd (registration number 2026/351084/07), which owns the software and the Pele ZA brand and licenses them to Tselapele Talent (Pty) Ltd. LEVERWARE (Pty) Ltd processes personal information only on our behalf and only to run the platform, as our operator under sections 20 and 21 of POPIA. Until October 2026 Pele ZA was operated by LEVERWARE (Pty) Ltd directly. Information collected before then is now held by Tselapele Talent (Pty) Ltd on the terms of this policy. We provide employment services as the Employment Services Act 4 of 2014 defines them - career information, assessing work seekers, referring them to employers and training providers, and recruitment and placement services for employers - which makes us a private employment agency under that Act. We therefore hold personal information about two different groups of people, and this policy covers both. Sections 2 to 9 are about you if you are looking for work. Section 10 is about you if you contacted us on behalf of an employer or a training provider. Work seekers never pay us, and nobody's information is ever sold. This privacy policy explains how we collect, use, store, and protect your personal information in compliance with the Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013 (POPIA). By using Pele ZA you confirm that you have read and understood this policy. Information Officer: For all data-related enquiries, contact our Information Officer at privacy@peleza.co.za.
2. What personal information we collect
We collect only the personal information needed to provide our services. This includes: Account information - Email address — when you create an account - Full name — when you create an account or enter it in the CV builder - Password — stored as a one-way hash by Supabase; we cannot read it CV and application data (only when you use these features) - Contact details: phone number, city, and province - Employment history: job titles, company names, dates, and duties - Education history: qualifications, institutions, and years - Skills, languages, and competency information - Reference contact details: names, phone numbers, and email addresses - Professional summary and career objective text Cover letters - The text of any cover letter you generate and save - The company name and job title associated with each letter Vacancy checker results - The URL of any job listing you check (if you used the URL input) - Your match score and verdict for each check - The full analysis result including strengths, gaps, and keyword matches Government job applications (Z83) — only if you use this feature - South African ID number — required by the official Z83 form. It is encrypted at rest (AES-256-GCM) and only decrypted to populate your Z83 document. - Your digital signature — drawn by you for the Z83, also encrypted at rest. - Z83 form fields you enter: personal details, qualifications, employment history, and references. Matching information (only if you switch on profile sharing) - Suburb, age band, highest qualification and NQF level, languages, driver's licence, the date you are available, and how far you can travel to work - Tags describing the kinds of roles you fit - We record an age band, never your date of birth Screening records (only if we screen you for an opportunity) - A note that a certified copy of a document was seen, which document it was, on what date and by whom. We do not keep a copy or a photograph of any document, and we never keep originals. - Notes from a screening call about communication, commitment and whether the travel is workable. These are internal. They are never sent to an employer. We do not collect your race, gender or disability for matching or shortlisting. Where those appear in a Z83 government application they are used for that form only and go no further. Usage data - We use privacy-friendly, cookieless analytics (Vercel Analytics) and our own first-party event counts (such as which features are used) to understand and improve the product. These contain no CV content, job text, names, or ID numbers. We also log server-side errors for debugging. We do not collect banking or financial details. We collect your South African ID number and digital signature only if you choose to use the Z83 government-application feature; both are encrypted at rest and we never sell or share them.
3. Why we collect your information (lawful basis)
We process your personal information only for the following lawful purposes under POPIA: Contractual necessity — to provide you with the services you request: - Generating, saving, and downloading your CV - Checking job vacancies and producing match results - Generating and saving cover letters - Providing your personal dashboard Legitimate interest — to improve and operate Pele ZA: - Diagnosing technical errors - Understanding which features are used Consent — where you have explicitly agreed: - Processing your CV and cover letter content through our AI provider (Groq) to generate results We will never sell your personal information. We will never use your information for targeted advertising. We will not use it for any purpose not listed here without your explicit consent.
4. How we store and protect your information
All data is stored in Supabase (PostgreSQL), hosted on servers within the United States (see section 7 on international transfers). Supabase encrypts data at rest using AES-256 and in transit using TLS 1.2 or higher. We apply the following additional safeguards: - Row-Level Security (RLS): your data is only accessible to your authenticated account; no other user can query your CVs, cover letters, or check results - Input validation and sanitisation on all API endpoints - Rate limiting to prevent abuse - Bearer token authentication for all write operations - No plaintext storage of passwords - Additional application-level encryption (AES-256-GCM) for your SA ID number and signature, on top of Supabase's encryption at rest If you use the CV builder, upload-cv, or vacancy checker without creating an account, your session data is processed in real time and not stored on our servers after your session ends. If you are logged in, your CVs, cover letters, and vacancy check results are stored in your account and remain accessible until you delete them or delete your account.
5. AI processing and automated decision-making
Pele ZA uses AI to generate and improve CV content, produce cover letters, analyse job vacancy fit, and tailor CVs to specific roles. These features are powered by a third-party AI inference provider (see section 8 for the current provider). When you use any AI feature, the relevant text (your CV content, job description, or cover letter request) is sent to our AI provider for processing. The provider may retain submitted data for a limited period in accordance with their own data retention policy. We may change AI providers to ensure reliability and will keep section 8 current. Important: the AI produces recommendations and suggestions only. All decisions about your job applications remain entirely your own. We do not use automated processing to make any legally significant decisions about you. We instruct our AI explicitly never to invent qualifications, certifications, or employment history that you did not provide. The output is always based on the information you supply.
6. How long we keep your information
Account data (CVs, cover letters, vacancy checks): kept for as long as your account is active. You may delete individual items at any time from your dashboard. You may delete your entire account at any time from the dashboard settings — this permanently removes all your data. Placement records: if we place you with an employer or training provider, section 16 of the Employment Services Act 4 of 2014 requires us to keep a register of the placement for at least three years. That register holds only your name, your email address, the employer, the role and the date — nothing else. It is the one record that survives deleting your account, because the law requires us to keep it; POPIA section 14(1) permits retention where another law requires it. Everything else about you is deleted. The register entry is deleted three years after the placement date. Screening records and document sightings: kept while your profile is active and deleted with your account. Server logs (error logs only): automatically purged after 30 days. AI provider processing logs: subject to our AI provider's own retention policy, which we do not control. See section 8 for the current provider. We do not retain any data beyond these periods. We do not archive or back up deleted user data after deletion is confirmed.
7. International data transfers
Pele ZA uses third-party service providers whose servers are located outside South Africa, primarily in the United States. When you use our service, your personal information may be transferred to and processed in the United States. These transfers are necessary to provide the service. By using Pele ZA, you consent to this transfer. We only transfer data to providers that maintain industry-standard security certifications (SOC 2, ISO 27001 where applicable). See section 8 for the full list of providers involved in your data processing.
8. Third-party service providers
We share your data with the following service providers only to the extent necessary to operate Pele ZA: LEVERWARE (Pty) Ltd — builds, hosts and maintains the Pele ZA platform for us, as our operator under POPIA. It has access to the information stored in the platform only to run and maintain it, and only on our instructions. Supabase (supabase.com) — database, authentication, and row-level security. Stores your account data, CVs, cover letters, and vacancy check results. Privacy policy: supabase.com/privacy Vercel (vercel.com) — application hosting and deployment. Processes web requests; does not store your personal data beyond standard server logs. Privacy policy: vercel.com/legal/privacy-policy Cerebras (cerebras.ai) — AI inference for CV generation, improvement, tailoring, vacancy analysis, and cover letter generation. Receives your CV text and job description text when you use AI features. Privacy policy: cerebras.ai. We may use alternative AI inference providers (such as Groq) to ensure reliability; this section is kept current. Apart from these providers, we share your personal information with one other kind of recipient, and only if you switch it on yourself: employers and training providers, as described in section 9. We never share your information with anyone else, and we do not use Facebook Pixel, Google Analytics, or any behavioural tracking tools.
9. Sharing your profile with employers
This is the only way your information reaches anyone other than the service providers in section 8, and it never happens unless you choose it. It is off by default. Nothing is shared with any employer or training provider until you switch on profile sharing in your profile settings. You can switch it off again at any time, and we will stop sharing from that moment. Switching it off cannot recall a shortlist we already sent, so we also tell you when your profile was last included in one. What we send when you have switched it on - Your name and the contact details you chose to put on your CV - Your qualifications, work experience, skills and languages - Our notes on how well you fit the specific role, from your vacancy checks and screening What we never send, whether sharing is on or off - Your South African ID number - Your digital signature - Your password, which we cannot read in any case Your ID number and signature are collected only for the Z83 government application form, stay encrypted in your account, and are never included in anything sent to an employer. Section 17 of the Employment Services Act 4 of 2014 requires that information provided to a prospective employer is limited to matters related to your qualifications and professional experience, and we hold ourselves to that. You must be 18 or older. Profile sharing is only available to people aged 18 and over. POPIA section 34 treats anyone under 18 as a child and does not permit us to process their information this way without a guardian's consent, so we do not include under-18s in anything sent to an employer. Who receives it. Employers and SETA-accredited training providers who have a specific opportunity we believe you match. We send your details for that opportunity only. We do not publish your profile, list it in a searchable database, or make it available for browsing. You are never charged. Section 15(1) of the Employment Services Act prohibits charging a work seeker a fee for employment services, and we do not. The employer or training provider pays us. Nothing about sharing your profile, or declining to, changes what you can use on Pele ZA or what it costs you, which is nothing. We never sell your personal information to anyone, under any circumstances.
10. If you contacted us as an employer or training provider
When you send us a vacancy brief or an enquiry we collect your name, the company you work for, your work email address, your phone number if you give one, what you told us about the role, and how you heard about us. That is personal information about you as a person even though you gave it to us at work, so POPIA applies to it and this section says what happens to it. Why we hold it. To reply to you, to do the work you asked us for, and, where we place somebody with you, to keep the register that section 16 of the Employment Services Act 4 of 2014 requires. Our lawful basis is your consent for the enquiry itself, our legitimate interests under section 11(1)(f) of POPIA in following it up, and performance of a contract under section 11(1)(b) once we are working together. What we do not do with it. We do not sell it. We do not pass it to other clients, and we do not add you to a marketing list you did not ask for. We do not give your contact details to a candidate unless you ask us to make that introduction. How long we keep it. Every enquiry is deleted twelve months after you send it, by a scheduled job rather than by anyone remembering to run it. If we went on to place somebody with you, that placement is recorded separately in the register described in section 6, and nothing else about you is kept. Your rights are the same as everybody else's. Section 13 applies to you in full: you may ask what we hold about you, have it corrected, ask us to delete it, or complain to the Information Regulator. What we hold about the candidates we send you is a separate matter. Once a shortlist reaches you, you are a responsible party for that information in your own right, and section 12 of our Terms of Service sets out what you may do with it.
11. Cookies and browser storage
Pele ZA does not use tracking cookies or third-party analytics cookies. We use the following browser storage mechanisms: Session storage (sessionStorage): used temporarily to carry a job description between pages — for example from the vacancy checker to the cover letter page, or from a job card to the Tailored Application Pack. It is cleared immediately after it is read and exists only for that navigation. Authentication cookies: Supabase sets a session cookie to keep you logged in. This cookie contains an encrypted session token and no personal data. It expires when you sign out or after 7 days of inactivity. We do not use persistent tracking cookies. We do not use cookies for advertising.
12. Children's data
Pele ZA is intended for job seekers aged 16 and over. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of 16. If you are a parent or guardian and believe a child under 16 has submitted personal information to our service, please contact us at privacy@peleza.co.za and we will delete it promptly.
13. Your rights under POPIA
As a South African data subject, you have the following rights: Right to access: you may request a copy of all personal information we hold about you. Right to correction: you may request that we correct inaccurate or incomplete personal information. Right to deletion: you may delete your account and all associated data directly from your dashboard at any time, or contact us to request deletion. Right to object: you may object to the processing of your personal information for specific purposes. Right to withdraw consent: where we process your information because you agreed to it — profile sharing with employers, in section 9 — you may withdraw that agreement at any time, from your profile settings, without giving a reason and without losing access to anything on Pele ZA. Withdrawing takes effect immediately and does not make our earlier processing unlawful. Right to data portability: your saved CVs and cover letters can be downloaded as PDF at any time from your dashboard. Right to lodge a complaint: if you believe your POPIA rights have been violated, you may lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator of South Africa at inforeg.org.za or call 010 023 5200. To exercise any right, contact us at privacy@peleza.co.za. We will respond within 30 days.
14. Changes to this policy
We may update this privacy policy from time to time. When we make material changes, we will notify registered users by email and update the "Last updated" date at the top of this page. Continued use of Pele ZA after changes constitutes acceptance of the updated policy. For questions about this policy or our data practices, contact us at privacy@peleza.co.za.
Information Regulator of South Africa. If you believe your POPIA rights have been violated, you may lodge a complaint at inforeg.org.za or call 010 023 5200.
Contact our Information Officer. For all data-related enquiries, correction requests, deletion requests, or complaints, email us at privacy@peleza.co.za. We will respond within 30 days.