Book-A-Spot (Pty) Ltd ("Book-A-Spot", "we", "us") runs the Book-A-Spot platform, where people discover and book local businesses, events and experiences. We are the responsible party for the personal information described in this policy.

If you have any question about this policy or about your information, email us at info@book-a-spot.com.

When you create an account

Your first name, surname, contact number, email address and profile picture, and whether you have confirmed that you are 18 or older.

When you make a booking

The name, email address and contact number the booking is held under, the number of guests, the date and time, the service or tickets chosen, and any notes you add. A guest booking is collected in the same way, without an account.

Health and dietary notes

If you pre-order food or drinks at a restaurant or nightlife venue, you may leave an allergy or dietary note so the kitchen can prepare for you. That is health information, so we ask for your explicit consent at that point and only collect it if you agree. It is never shown publicly, and it is automatically cleared 30 days after the booking.

Payments

Card payments are processed by our payment provider. Your full card number never reaches us and we never store it. If you save a card for later, we keep only the card brand, the last four digits and the expiry date.

If you list a business

Your business name, owner name, business email, contact number, address and location, the registration document and government identification you upload, and the services, menus, staff and seating layouts you set up. If you connect your own payment account, the key you add is stored privately and used only to take payments for your business.

Content you post

Photographs you upload to The Retro, reviews, likes, and anything you send us through a report, a suggestion or a request to manage a listing.

Activity on the platform

Which business and event pages are opened, and whether the visit came from a signed-in account or a guest. This is what lets us rank listings and tell a business how much interest its page is getting.

Your choices

Whether you agreed to receive marketing communications from us, and whether you have already confirmed your age so we do not ask you again.

Some of the events, experiences and places on Book-A-Spot are put together by us from information that is already public: a business's own website, its public social pages, public event listings and public review platforms. Those listings show the organiser or venue name, the address, photographs, a description and, where the business publishes them, contact details.

Organiser names, phone numbers, email addresses and social handles gathered this way are kept for no more than 120 days after the event and are then cleared automatically. The listing itself — what the event is, when and where it happens — carries no personal contact information after that.

Where a rating from Google is shown on a listing, it is quoted exactly as Google publishes it and links to the Google listing it came from. We do not round it up or change it.

If you own or organise a listing that we compiled and you want it corrected, claimed, taken over or removed, use the listing management link on the listing itself, or contact us.

• To create your account, sign you in and keep your profile up to date.
• To take, confirm, change, cancel and remind you about bookings, and to issue tickets.
• To pass your booking details to the business you booked with so that they can honour it.
• To take payment for tickets, bookings and pre-orders.
• To send you booking confirmations, reminders and, where you have agreed to it, marketing messages.
• To keep the platform safe and honest: reviewing reported content, acting on reports, and preventing fraud and abuse.
• To understand which listings people are interested in and to improve the platform.

We do not use your information for any purpose that is incompatible with these.

• The business you booked with — your name, contact number, the details of the booking, and any allergy note you gave, so that they can serve you properly.
• Our payment provider, to process card payments and refunds.
• The providers who host, run and send email for the platform, who handle information on our behalf under contract and only on our instructions.
• The authorities or a regulator, where the law requires us to.

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it with advertisers as a list of identifiable people.

• Account and profile information: for as long as your account is open.
• Allergy and dietary notes: 30 days after the booking, then cleared automatically. The booking itself is left as it is.
• Organiser contact details compiled from public sources: 120 days after the event, then cleared automatically.
• Booking, ticket and payment records: kept as a record of the transaction. If you delete your account these records are kept, but your name, email address and phone number are replaced so that the record no longer identifies you.
• Page-view and activity records: tied to your account while it exists, and removed when your account is deleted.

An allergy note is also emailed to the venue so the kitchen can act on it. That copy is outside our control once it has been sent; the venue is told to use it only for your booking and to dispose of it afterwards.

We use the storage your browser gives us to keep you signed in and to remember choices you have already made in the app, such as an age confirmation or a notice you have dismissed. We do not use third-party advertising or tracking cookies.

You can ask us to delete your account at any time — from your profile inside the app, or from the request form on our Contact Us page. You do not need the app or a signed-in session to do this.

We email the address on the account a link to confirm. Nothing happens until you click that link, so nobody can delete your account by typing your email address into a form.

Once you confirm, your account is suspended straight away and erased at the end of day 31 — 30 days later. During that time you can sign in and choose "Keep my account" to cancel the deletion and get everything back.

What is erased

Your profile and login, saved payment methods, waiting-list entries, page-view records, your likes and votes, and any lead details you left with us. Bookings you still have coming up are cancelled. If you own a business listing, the listing is closed and hidden and its services, menus, staff and seating layouts are removed.

What is kept, without you in it

Some records have to stay because they involve another person or a legal duty: payments, tickets, bookings and reviews written about you. Those records are kept, but your name, email address and phone number are replaced with a placeholder that identifies nobody, and any health note on them is cleared.

Under the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) you may ask us to show you the personal information we hold about you, to correct anything that is wrong, to delete it, or to stop using it for a particular purpose. You may also object to a use you have not agreed to.

Marketing is opt-in. Every marketing message we send can be stopped at no cost, and you can change your mind at any time.

To exercise any of these, email info@book-a-spot.com.

If you are not satisfied with how we have handled your information, you may complain to the Information Regulator (South Africa), JD House, 27 Stiemens Street, Braamfontein, Johannesburg, 2001, complaints.IR@justice.gov.za.

Access to personal information is limited to the people who need it. Records are held under per-record access rules, so one account cannot read another's bookings, tickets or payment methods. Card numbers never reach our systems. Registration documents and identification uploads are stored privately and are used only to verify a business, and only for as long as that verification needs.

Booking on Book-A-Spot requires you to confirm that you are 18 or older, and we do not knowingly collect information from children. If a child has given us personal information, contact us and we will remove it.

Book-A-Spot is free to use and carries in-app advertising alongside optional paid features. Some advertising may be based on activity on the platform — for example, which kinds of listings you have looked at. You can ask us to stop using your activity for this at any time by emailing us.

If we change this policy we will update the date shown at the top. Where a change materially affects you, we will tell you in the app or by email before it takes effect.