Privacy Notice

This Privacy Notice explains how HOTSEAT AGENCY (PTY) LTD, a company registered in South Africa with its registered address at 14 Darling Street, Cape Town, 8001, Western Cape, South Africa (“Hotseat”, “we”, “us”) collects, uses and protects personal data in connection with the Hotseat Guides service at hotseat.agency/guides (the “Service”).

For the personal data described in this notice, Hotseat acts as the data controller. For payments and billing information collected during checkout, our reseller Paddle.com Market Limited acts as the controller in its capacity as Merchant of Record.

• Contact & order data — name, email address, country, order history, download links issued and the timestamp at which those links are first accessed.
• Support data — the content of any email or message you send us.
• Usage & device data — pages visited, referrer, approximate location derived from IP address, browser and device type.
• Cookies — see section 8 below.

Payment card details are collected and processed by Paddle. Hotseat never sees or stores your full card number.

• To create your order and deliver the Guide you purchased.
• To send transactional emails (order confirmation, download link, security notices).
• To provide customer support and respond to your enquiries.
• To detect, prevent and investigate fraud, abuse and misuse of the Service.
• To measure and improve the Service (aggregate analytics, product improvement).
• To meet our legal, tax and accounting obligations.

Where UK GDPR or EU GDPR applies, we rely on the following legal bases:

• Performance of a contract — to process orders and deliver Guides.
• Legitimate interests — to secure the Service, prevent fraud, respond to support requests, and improve our products.
• Legal obligation — to retain financial records and comply with tax law.
• Consent — for optional analytics or marketing cookies, where required.

• Paddle.com Market Limited — our Merchant of Record for payments, invoicing, sales tax / VAT compliance and fraud prevention.
• Hosting & infrastructure providers — cloud hosting, database and email delivery providers acting as our processors under written agreements.
• Analytics providers — where used, configured with IP-anonymisation where available.
• Professional advisers — accountants and lawyers when needed.
• Authorities — where we are required to disclose by law or valid legal process.

We do not sell your personal data.

Hotseat operates from South Africa, and some of our providers (including Paddle and our hosting providers) process data outside your country of residence, including in the UK, EEA and United States. Where transfers out of the UK or EEA take place we rely on appropriate safeguards such as the UK International Data Transfer Agreement or the EU Standard Contractual Clauses, or on an adequacy decision.

We keep order and financial records for 7 years to meet South African tax and accounting requirements. Support correspondence is kept for as long as needed to resolve the enquiry and for a reasonable period afterwards. Analytics data is retained in aggregate. When data is no longer needed we delete or anonymise it.

We use a small number of cookies and similar technologies:

• Essential — required to run the site, secure it and remember your currency preference.
• Analytics — to understand aggregate usage of the Service.
• Payment — set by Paddle during checkout to process your order and prevent fraud.

You can control cookies through your browser settings. Blocking essential cookies may break parts of the Service.

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, delete, restrict or object to processing of your personal data, to data portability, and to withdraw any consent you have given. To exercise any of these rights, email guides@hotseat.agency. We aim to respond within one (1) month.

If you are in the UK or EEA you also have the right to complain to your local data protection supervisory authority. If you are in South Africa you may lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator.

We use appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect personal data, including encryption in transit (TLS), access controls, and least-privilege administration. No online service is ever 100% secure — if we become aware of a personal data breach that is likely to result in a risk to your rights and freedoms we will notify the relevant authorities and, where required, you.

We may update this Privacy Notice from time to time. The updated version will be posted on this page with a new “Last updated” date.

HOTSEAT AGENCY (PTY) LTD
14 Darling Street, Cape Town, 8001, Western Cape, South Africa
guides@hotseat.agency