Top Tool (“we”, “us”, “our”) respects your privacy and is committed to protecting your personal information in accordance with the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) of South Africa. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, and safeguard your information when you visit our website https://top-tool.co.za (the “Website”), interact with us, or purchase our products or services.
Please read this Privacy Policy carefully. If you do not agree with the terms of this Privacy Policy, please do not access the Website or use our services.
1. Information We Collect
1.1 Personal Information
We may collect personal information that you voluntarily provide to us when you:
- Register for an account on our Website
- Place an order for metalworking tools or equipment
- Request a quote for specialized tooling solutions
- Subscribe to our technical newsletter
- Request tool reconditioning or repair services
- Contact us via our contact forms, email, or phone
- Apply for training programs or technical demonstrations
The personal information we may collect includes:
- Name and job title
- Company name (for business customers)
- Email address
- Phone number
- Physical address (business or personal)
- VAT registration number (for business customers)
- Payment information
- Industry sector and machining requirements
- Technical specifications for customized tooling requests
- Any other information you choose to provide
1.2 Automatically Collected Information
When you visit our Website, we may automatically collect certain information, including:
- IP address
- Browser type and version
- Operating system
- Pages you visit on our Website
- Time and date of your visit
- Time spent on those pages
- Referring website addresses
2. How We Use Your Information
We use the information we collect for the following purposes:
- To provide and maintain our Website and services
- To process and fulfill your orders for tools, equipment, or services
- To send you order confirmations, shipping updates, and technical documentation
- To provide customer support and technical assistance
- To prepare customized quotes and tooling solutions based on your requirements
- To manage your tool reconditioning requests and carbide buy-back submissions
- To personalize your experience with tooling recommendations specific to your industry needs
- To communicate with you about product innovations, technical updates, and industry best practices
- To arrange technical demonstrations, training sessions, or visits to see our machinery
- To improve our Website, products, and services based on your feedback
- To prevent fraud and ensure the security of transactions and our Website
- To comply with legal obligations and industry regulations
3. Comments
When you leave comments on our Website, we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also your IP address and browser user agent string to help with spam detection.
An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.
4. Media
If you upload images to the Website (such as photos of your machining projects, tool wear patterns, or technical issues for troubleshooting), you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the Website can download and extract any location data from images on the Website.
5. Cookies
We use cookies and similar tracking technologies to track activity on our Website and hold certain information. Cookies are files with a small amount of data that may include an anonymous unique identifier.
If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.
If you visit our login page, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.
When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.
You can instruct your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. However, if you do not accept cookies, you may not be able to use some portions of our Website.
6. Embedded Content from Other Websites
Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos of machining demonstrations, technical diagrams, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if you have visited the other website.
These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.
7. Who We Share Your Data With
We may share your personal information with:
- Service Providers: We may share your information with third-party service providers who perform services on our behalf, such as payment processing, shipping and logistics, data analysis, email delivery, hosting services, customer service, and technical support.
- Manufacturing Partners: We may share relevant information with our manufacturing partners such as Sandvik Coromant and HERMLE to facilitate technical support, warranty claims, and specialized tooling solutions.
- Business Customers: If you are purchasing on behalf of a business, we may share your information within your organization to facilitate communication about orders, technical requirements, and support.
- Legal Requirements: We may disclose your information where we are legally required to do so in order to comply with applicable law, governmental requests, a judicial proceeding, court order, or legal process.
If you request a password reset, your IP address will be included in the reset email.
8. How Long We Retain Your Data
For business customers, we retain your account information and purchase history for as long as your account remains active, plus an additional period to comply with tax, accounting, and other legal requirements. For individual customers, we retain your data for similar purposes in accordance with POPIA guidelines.
If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.
For users that register on our website, we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.
Technical specifications, machining parameters, and other industry-specific data may be anonymized and retained for longer periods to help us improve our products and services.
9. Security of Your Information
We implement appropriate technical and organizational security measures to protect your personal information from unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, and destruction. Our security measures include:
- Encryption of sensitive data
- Regular security assessments
- Access controls and authentication procedures
- Staff training on data protection
- Secure storage of physical documents
However, please note that no method of transmission over the Internet or method of electronic storage is 100% secure.
10. Your Rights
Under POPIA, you have the right to:
- Request access to your personal information
- Request correction of your personal information
- Request deletion of your personal information
- Object to processing of your personal information
- Request restriction of processing your personal information
- Request transfer of your personal information
- Withdraw consent where we rely on consent to process your personal information
- Lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator
If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.
11. International Data Transfers
We may transfer your personal information to countries outside South Africa, particularly when sharing data with our international manufacturing partners. We will ensure that these transfers comply with POPIA by ensuring that the recipient country provides an adequate level of protection for your personal information or through the use of appropriate safeguards, such as contracts that include data protection clauses approved by the Information Regulator.
12. Business Customer Information
If you are a business customer, we process information about your company and its representatives. Under POPIA, this information is still considered personal information and is protected accordingly. We use this information to manage our business relationship, provide technical support, process orders, and maintain accounts.
13. Changes to This Privacy Policy
We may update our Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of any changes by posting the new Privacy Policy on this page and updating the “Last updated” date at the top of this page. You are advised to review this Privacy Policy periodically for any changes.
14. Information Officer
We have appointed an Information Officer to oversee compliance with this Privacy Policy and to handle your requests and queries related to your personal information. You can contact our Information Officer using the details provided in the Contact Us section.
15. Contact Us
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, or if you wish to exercise any of your rights regarding your personal information, please contact us at:
Email: info@top-tool.co.za
Phone: (+27) 76 511 3066
Address: 39 Jameson St, Strand, Cape Town, 7139
You may also contact the Information Regulator of South Africa at:
Website: https://www.justice.gov.za/inforeg/
Email: inforeg@justice.gov.za