Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

(registration number ), trading as Send My CV, is a Responsible Party as defined in the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 ("POPIA"). We operate a free CV-building service available to residents of South Africa, offered mainly through WhatsApp and also through secure pages on our website, including a private online CV editor and a free "try it online" demo builder.

This Privacy Policy explains what personal information we collect, why we collect it, how we use and protect it, and what rights you have under South African law.

2. Information we collect

2.1 Information you give us directly

• Identity information: your full name
• Contact information: your WhatsApp phone number; your email address (optional)
• Location information: city or town of residence
• Education history: qualification level, field of study, institution name
• Employment history: job titles, employer names, employment cities, dates, duties, and achievements (up to three roles)
• Skills: professional and personal skills you select or describe
• Languages: languages you speak and your proficiency level in each
• Profile statement: a short personal description you write or that we generate with your approval
• Availability: when you can start a new job
• Interview Practice answers (optional): if you use the Interview Practice feature, the English text transcript of each voice-note answer. We use the voice note only to create the transcript and do not store the audio recording — it is discarded once transcribed
• Cover / motivation letter answers (optional): if you use the letter-writing feature, your answers to a few short questions — the job or learnership you are applying for, the company or organisation offering it, why you want it, and any special requirements or hopes, in your own words — together with the generated letter text, so you can edit and reuse your letter later. Open questions can be answered by voice note; as with Interview Practice, the voice note is used only to create a text transcript and the audio recording is never stored

2.2 Special personal information (optional)

With your explicit consent, and only if you choose to share it, we may collect:

• Race and gender for Employment Equity reporting on your CV
• Right-to-work status (e.g. South African citizen, permanent resident, work permit holder)

These fields are entirely optional. You may skip them at any time and they will not appear on your CV if you do not provide them.

2.3 Information collected automatically

• Message timestamps and conversation state, used to manage your session and send reminder messages if you stop partway through
• Feedback you voluntarily submit about the service
• Contact form submissions sent via our website
• Job listing interactions: when you tap a job listing link in the JOBS feature, we record which listing you tapped and when, linked to your WhatsApp number, to measure interest and improve which jobs we show you
• Interview Practice analytics (only if you consent): if you consent to your practice answers being stored, we also keep derived, pseudonymous metrics about each answer — for example a quality score, structure and readiness ratings, the spoken language, and a word count. These are linked to an internal identifier only, not to your name or phone number, and contain no raw answer text
• Letter analytics: if you use the letter-writing feature, we keep derived, pseudonymous metrics about each letter — the letter type (cover or motivation), a normalised job/programme category, whether you have work experience, whether you listed special requirements (yes/no only), your province, whether you answered by voice or text, the letter design you chose, and how many times you edited the letter. These are linked to an internal identifier only, not to your name or phone number, and never contain your answers or the letter text itself

2.4 Website analytics (with your consent)

If you accept analytics cookies, we use Microsoft Clarity to collect anonymised data about how visitors interact with our website — including mouse movements, clicks, scroll depth, and page views. This data is used only to improve the website experience. It does not contain your CV content, name, phone number, or any other personal information you provided via WhatsApp. You can withdraw your consent at any time by clearing your browser cookies.

2.5 The "try it online" demo builder — nothing is stored

Our website offers a free demo of the CV builder that anyone can use without WhatsApp and without an account. Anything you type into the demo — including your name, contact details, work and education history, and any optional Employment-Equity details — stays in your browser and is used only to build a live preview and to generate a PDF for you to download. When you tap download, that information is sent to our server once, purely to create your PDF, and is then discarded.

We do not save anything you enter in the demo, we do not create an account for you, and we do not link it to your identity. None of it is written to our database or sent to the AI providers listed in section 5. Once you close or leave the page, the information is gone and cannot be recovered by us or by you — so please download your CV before you leave if you want to keep it. If you would like your CV saved so you can edit it later, create it on WhatsApp, where the information handling described in the rest of this policy applies.

2.6 Adding documents to your CV — your documents never reach us

If you have a completed CV, we may offer you a private link to a page where you can add your own documents — for example a matric certificate, other certificates, a driver's licence, a reference letter or an identity document — and save them as one PDF with your CV as the first page. The documents are combined into that PDF on your own phone or computer, in your browser, and the finished file is saved directly to your device.

Nothing you add is ever uploaded to us — not the individual photos and files, and not the finished PDF. We do not receive it, we never see it, it does not pass through our servers, and it is not sent to any other person or company on your behalf. We therefore cannot retrieve it, re-send it, or produce it later, and there is no copy of it anywhere but on your own device — if you lose the file you must create it again. This is deliberate: because these documents are the most sensitive information you could give us, we designed the feature so that we never hold them at all.

The only thing we record is a simple, non-identifying note that the feature was used, so we can count how many people use it and ask you afterwards how it went. That note contains no file names, no document contents, and no record of how many documents you added or how large they were. The page does download your own CV from us in order to place it as the first page, exactly as it would if you opened your CV anywhere else in the service.

You decide what to include. We never ask for, or require, an identity document. If you choose to add one, be aware it usually contains your identity number and your photograph, so only add it when an employer has genuinely asked for it and share it only with people you trust. You may only add documents that are yours or that you are entitled to share. Once the PDF is saved on your device, you alone control who you send it to.

3. How we collect your information

We collect information:

• Directly from you, through conversation on WhatsApp
• Directly from you, through our private online CV editor, which you open from a personal link we send you (a CV you build or edit there is saved to the same record as your WhatsApp CV)
• Directly from you, through our free "try it online" demo builder — but, as explained in section 2.5, this information is used only to generate your PDF download and is not stored
• Not at all through the "add documents" page — as explained in section 2.6, your documents are combined in your own browser and saved to your own device, and are never uploaded to us
• Through our website contact form at sendmycv.co.za/contact
• Through analytics cookies on our website, only if you give your explicit consent (see section 11)

We do not use tracking pixels or behavioural advertising.

4. Why we use your information

We process your personal information for the following purposes:

• CV generation: to build, format, and deliver your professional CV as a PDF — the primary purpose of the service. You receive your CV on WhatsApp, or as a download when you build or edit it on our website
• Session management: to save your progress so you can continue later and to allow you to update your CV, whether you are on WhatsApp or in our private online editor. (The "try it online" demo is the exception — it saves nothing; see section 2.5)
• Reminders: to send you a single follow-up WhatsApp message if you start but do not complete your CV within 23 hours
• Job listings and matching: if you use the JOBS feature and give the separate consent we request beforehand, we use your location, the kind of work you are looking for, and relevant details from your CV (such as your driver's licence and work experience) to show you suitable job opportunities from third-party employers, ranked by how close they are to you, and we record which listings you tap to improve future matches. We do not share your personal information with these employers — you apply to them directly.
• Cover / motivation letters: if you use this optional feature, we combine your answers to a few short questions with the career details already on your CV (work experience, skills, education, certificates, and languages — never your name, contact details, or location) and use AI to write a one-page cover or motivation letter, delivered to you as a PDF. We ask for your consent the first time you use the feature. We store your answers and your latest letter so you can edit, restyle, and reuse them without starting over; the letter PDF itself is only sent to you on WhatsApp and is not kept in our storage. Voice-note answers are transcribed to text and the audio is never stored. You can delete your answers and letter at any time by sending RESTART.
• Interview Practice: if you use this optional feature, we transcribe your voice notes into English and analyse them with AI to give you practice feedback. We do not store the audio recording — it is discarded once transcribed. We store the text transcript only if you give the separate consent we request beforehand; where you consent, the transcript and the derived metrics are kept pseudonymously to show you progress and to produce anonymised, aggregated insights. You can withdraw this consent at any time from the Interview Practice menu, which stops further storage and deletes the transcripts and metrics we have stored for you. If you do not consent, your transcribed answer is used only for your immediate feedback and is not retained.
• Service improvement: we analyse aggregated, anonymised data (e.g. common skills across South Africa) to improve the service. No individual is identifiable in this analysis.
• Customer support: to respond to enquiries submitted via our contact form
• Legal compliance: to comply with applicable South African laws

If you opted in, we may also send you WhatsApp messages about new services we launch. You can opt out at any time by sending RESTART to our WhatsApp number and choosing to start fresh, or by contacting us directly.

5. Who we share your information with

We do not sell your personal information. We share it only with the following Operators who process data on our behalf, under written data processing agreements:

• Supabase Inc. (database and file storage) — your CV data and session information is stored on Supabase servers. Data is encrypted at rest and in transit. Supabase may host data in data centres outside South Africa.
• Meta Platforms Ireland Limited (WhatsApp Cloud API) — all messages you send and receive pass through Meta's WhatsApp Business Platform. Meta's own privacy policy applies to WhatsApp messaging.
• Google LLC (Gemini AI) — your CV content (work history, skills, profile statement) is sent to Google's Gemini API solely to improve the quality of your CV text. If you use the cover / motivation letter feature, your answers to the letter questions and the career details from your CV (work experience, skills, education, certificates, and languages — never your name, contact details, or location) are sent to Gemini to write and revise your letter. If you use the Interview Practice feature, your voice notes are also sent to Gemini to be transcribed, translated into English, and analysed so we can give you feedback; voice-note answers to the letter questions are transcribed the same way. Google does not use this data to train its models under our API agreement.
• Groq Inc. — used for real-time text processing (e.g. spelling correction of job titles), as a backup AI provider for writing cover / motivation letters (receiving the same letter answers and non-identifying CV career details as Google Gemini, above), and, in the Interview Practice and letter features, to transcribe and translate your voice notes into English (using a speech-to-text model). Groq does not retain your data beyond the processing request.
• Microsoft Corporation (Clarity analytics) — if you accept analytics cookies, anonymised website interaction data (mouse movements, clicks, page views) is shared with Microsoft Clarity. No CV content or personal information from WhatsApp is included. Microsoft's privacy policy governs their handling of this data.

We may also disclose your information if required to do so by law or by a competent South African court or authority.

6. International transfers

Some of our Operators (listed above) process data outside South Africa. Where this occurs, we take steps to ensure that adequate protection is in place, including contractual safeguards consistent with POPIA section 72. By using our service, you acknowledge that your information may be transferred to and processed in countries outside South Africa.

7. How long we keep your information

• CV data and session records: retained for years from your last interaction, or until you request deletion via the RESTART command
• Inactive accounts (no messages for more than months) are automatically deleted
• Special personal information (race, gender, right-to-work): deleted together with your session record
• Interview Practice transcripts and metrics (stored only if you consent; the audio is never stored): kept while you remain opted in, and deleted as soon as you opt out from the Interview Practice menu or send RESTART; otherwise deleted together with your session record
• Cover / motivation letter answers and letter text (voice-note audio is never stored): kept as part of your session record so you can edit and reuse your letter, and deleted together with your session record — including immediately when you send RESTART. The pseudonymous letter analytics described in section 2.3 are deleted at the same time
• Feedback submissions: retained for years
• Contact form submissions: retained for years
• "Try it online" demo builder: not stored at all — information you enter is used only to generate your PDF download and is then discarded (see section 2.5)

You can delete your data at any time by sending RESTART to our WhatsApp number. This permanently erases your name, contact details, CV content, and session history.

8. Your rights under POPIA

As a data subject under POPIA, you have the right to:

• Access: request a copy of the personal information we hold about you
• Correction: request that inaccurate or incomplete information be corrected (you can also do this yourself by sending EDIT on WhatsApp, or in our private online CV editor)
• Deletion: request that your personal information be deleted (send RESTART on WhatsApp for immediate deletion)
• Objection: object to the processing of your personal information on reasonable grounds
• Withdraw consent: withdraw your consent to processing at any time, without affecting the lawfulness of processing carried out before withdrawal
• Lodge a complaint: complain to the Information Regulator if you believe your rights have been violated (see section 12)

To exercise any of the above rights, contact our Information Officer using the details in section 13.

9. Security

We implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your personal information against unauthorised access, loss, or destruction. These include:

• Encryption of data in transit (TLS) and at rest
• Role-based access controls limiting who can access your data
• Separation of sensitive attributes (race, gender, right-to-work status) into a separate database table with restricted access
• Use of service-role API keys that are never exposed to end users

No system is completely secure. If you become aware of a security concern, please contact us immediately at .

10. Children

Our service is intended for persons aged 18 and over. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 18. If you believe a child has submitted information to us, please contact us and we will delete it promptly.

11. Cookies and analytics

We use one analytics cookie on our website — Microsoft Clarity — and only with your explicit consent. When you first visit our website, a banner gives you the choice to Accept or Decline this cookie.

• If you accept: the Clarity cookie is set and anonymised usage data (mouse movements, clicks, scroll depth, page views) is collected to help us improve the website. No CV content or personal information from your WhatsApp session is ever included.
• If you decline: no analytics cookie is set and no data is sent to Microsoft Clarity.

Your preference is stored in your browser's local storage. You can withdraw consent at any time by clearing your browser's cookies and local storage, then declining when the banner reappears.

We do not use advertising cookies, tracking pixels, or any form of behavioural advertising.

12. Changes to this policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. The version number and effective date at the top of this page will reflect any changes. We will notify active users of material changes via WhatsApp before they take effect.

13. How to complain

If you are not satisfied with how we handle your personal information, you may lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator:

We encourage you to contact us first so that we can attempt to resolve your concern directly before escalating to the Regulator.

14. Contact us

For any privacy-related queries, requests, or complaints, contact our Information Officer: