Privacy Policy

vLake offers domain registration, WordPress hosting, email hosting, and web consulting services. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, and safeguard your personal information in accordance with South Africa’s POPIA and, where applicable, the EU’s GDPR.

You must be at least 18 years old to use vLake services. You are responsible for keeping your account credentials (username and password) confidential and for all activities under your account. vLake may suspend or terminate your account if you violate applicable laws or these policies.

In our public WordPress site we use Google Analytics only to gather anonymous, aggregate traffic metrics; no personal information is captured. In our dedicated client portal every user—whether registering with email/password or via Google OAuth—must complete our sign-up form. We collect first and last name, email address, cell phone number, street address, city, state/province, postal code, country, and a secure password. Business clients may optionally provide company name and tax ID. We collect no other personal data.

We use your personal information solely to establish and manage your account; register and renew domains; provision and maintain hosting and email services; carry out consulting work; and send transactional messages such as invoices, payment reminders, and service notifications. We do not use your data for marketing, nor do we sell or trade it.

We share your personal data only when strictly necessary to provide our services. Specifically, your registration details are transmitted to our domain registrar to register or renew your domain names. We do not share your personal information with any other third parties. Payment processing is handled by a dedicated, PCI-compliant gateway: your payment details are submitted directly to that gateway and vLake does not transfer or store or receive or collect payment card data.

Our dedicated client portal uses no (cookies for tracking) or any tracking technologies. On our public WordPress site we deploy only Google Analytics for anonymized site metrics. We do not use advertising or marketing cookies.

We protect your information with industry-standard measures. All passwords are hashed before storage, and all data in transit is encrypted via SSL/TLS. Access to personal data is restricted to authorized personnel, and our servers receive regular security updates and monitoring.

Under POPIA and GDPR you may request, at no cost, access to, correction of, or deletion of your personal data; restrict or object to its processing; and obtain a portable copy. To exercise these rights, please email info@vlake.co.za. We will respond within the timeframes required by law.

We retain personal data only as long as necessary to deliver services, comply with legal obligations, and resolve disputes; thereafter it is securely deleted or anonymized. In the event of a breach affecting your information, we will promptly notify you, describe the incident, outline mitigation steps, and inform the Information Regulator as required.

We may update this Privacy Policy periodically. Continued use of our services after changes indicates your acceptance of the new policy.

For questions or to exercise your rights, please contact us at: info@vlake.co.za