Privacy Policy
The District Grand Lodge of South Africe Western Division ( DGLSAWD ) owns and operates this web site.
This policy only covers the DGLSAWD website at www.freemasonrycape.net & www.freemasonrycape.co.za
Links to other web sites outside of this one are not covered by this policy.
1. Introduction and General Terms
The District Grand Lodge of South Africa Western Division (DGLSAWD) is committed to protecting your personal information when you are using our website. This Privacy Policy relates to our use of any personal information you provide to us through our website.
This privacy policy explains the following:
- what information we may collect about you;
- how we will use information we collect about you;
- when we may use your details to contact you;
- whether we will disclose your details to anyone else;
- your choices regarding the personal information you have provided to us;
- the use of cookies on our website and how you can reject these cookies
Our website may contain hyperlinks to websites owned and operated by third parties. These third party websites have their own privacy policies, including cookies, and we urge you to review them. They will govern the use of personal information you submit or are collected by cookies whilst visiting these websites. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the privacy practices of such third party websites and your use of such websites is at your own risk.
2. What information will the DGLSAWD collect about me?
When you sign up to participate in or receive a service from our website, such as newsletters, competitions, updates, or message boards, we may ask for personal information about you. This can consist of information such as your name, e-mail address, postal address, telephone or mobile number or date of birth. Different web pages may ask for different personal information. By entering your details in the fields requested, you enable us to provide you with the services you select.
We also use cookies (see paragraph 13 below for details) and collect IP addresses (an IP address is a number that can uniquely identify a specific computer or other network device on the Internet). We may use analysis software to look at IP addresses and cookies for the purpose of enhancing your user experience. This information is not used to develop a personal profile of you and the log files are regularly purged.
3. How will the DGLSAWD use the information they collect about me?
We will use your personal information for a number of purposes including the following:
- for 'service administration purposes', which means that we may contact you for reasons related to the service you have signed up for, as set out in paragraph 4 below (e.g. to provide you with password reminders or to notify you that a particular service has been suspended for maintenance);
- to contact you about a submission you have made to our website, including any content you provide;
- to personalise the way our content is presented to you (e.g. if we notice that the first thing you look at every day is the News, then we may present this information or a link to it on your homepage);
- IP addresses are used to identify the location of users, the number of visits from different countries and also to block disruptive use;
- to analyse and improve the services offered on our website. e.g. to provide you with the most user-friendly navigation experience.
Where we propose using your personal information for any other uses we will ensure that we notify you first. You will also be given the opportunity to withhold or withdraw your consent for your use other than as listed above.
4. When will the DGLSAWD contact me?
We may contact you:
- in relation to the functioning of any service you have signed up for in order to ensure that we can deliver the services to you;
- where you have opted to receive further correspondence;
- in relation to any contribution you have made to our website;
- to invite you to participate in surveys about the website (participation is always voluntary);
- for marketing purposes where you have specifically agreed to this (see paragraph 5 below)
5. Will I be contacted for marketing purposes?
We will not contact you for marketing purposes, or promote new services to you unless you specifically agree to be contacted for these purposes.
6. Will the DGLSAWD share my personal information with anyone else?
We will keep your information confidential except where disclosure is required or permitted by law (for example to government bodies and law enforcement agencies) or as described in paragraph 7 below.
Generally, we will only use your information within the DGLSAWD.
However, sometimes we may use third parties to process your information. We will require these third parties to comply strictly with its instructions and we will require that they do not use your personal information for their own business purposes.
7. Offensive or inappropriate content on the DGLSAWD website
If you post or send offensive, inappropriate or objectionable content anywhere on or to our website, or otherwise engage in any disruptive behaviour on our website, we may use your personal information to stop such behaviour.
Where DGLSAWD reasonably believe that you are, or may be, in breach of any of the laws of South Africa (e.g. because content you have posted may be defamatory), we may use your personal information to inform relevant third parties such as your employer, E-mail & Internet provider, or law enforcement agencies about the content and your behaviour.
8. What if I am aged 16 or under?
If you are aged 16 or under, you may not register on this website, even if you get your parent/guardian's permission beforehand.
9. How long will the DGLSAWD keep my personal information?
We will hold your personal information on our systems for as long as is necessary for the relevant service, or as long as is set out in any relevant contract you hold with us. Where you contribute to our website, we will generally only keep your content for as long as is reasonably required for the purpose(s) for which it was submitted.
10. Can I find out what personal information the DGLSAWD hold about me?
Under the Data Protection Act you have the right to request a copy of the personal information we hold about you and to have any inaccuracies corrected. (We will/may require you to prove your identity with 2 pieces of approved photographic identification.) We will use reasonable efforts to supply, correct or delete personal information about you on our files.
Please send queries about this Privacy Policy to the District Grand Secretary.
11. What if I am accessing the DGLSAWD website outside of South Africa?
All personal information submitted by you to our website will be processed in accordance with this Privacy Policy.
12. Changes to our Privacy Policy
This privacy policy may be updated from time to time, please check it each time you submit personal information to our website. The date of the most recent revisions will always appear at the bottom of this page.
13. Cookies Policy - Information the DGLSAWD collects from you
A cookie is a small amount of data, which often includes a unique identifier that is sent to your computer or mobile phone (referred to here as a "device") browser from a website's computer and is stored on your device's hard drive. Each website can send its own cookie to your browser if your browser's preferences allow it, but (to protect your privacy) your browser only permits a website to access the cookies it has already sent to you, not the cookies sent to you by other sites. Many sites do this whenever a user visits their website in order to track online traffic flows.
Cookies record information about your online preferences and allow us to tailor the websites to your interests. Users have the opportunity to set their devices to accept all cookies, to notify them when a cookie is issued, or not to receive cookies at any time. The last of these means that certain personalised services cannot then be provided to that user and accordingly you may not be able to take full advantage of all of our website features. Each browser is different, so check the "Help" menu of your browser to learn how to change your cookie preferences.
During the course of any visit to our website, the pages you see, along with a cookie, are downloaded to your device. Many websites do this, because cookies enable website publishers to do useful things like find out whether the device (and probably its user) has visited the website before. This is done on a repeat visit by checking to see, and finding, the cookie left there on the last visit.
We use a cookie to store any preferences you have made on our website, such as the font size. Information supplied by cookies can also help us to analyse the profile of our visitors and help us to provide you with a better user experience. For example: if on a previous visit you went to our Royal Arch Chapter pages, we might find this out from your cookie and highlight Royal Arch Chapter information on your second and subsequent visits.
Last Updated : 12th April 2011
Summary of terms
Browser: Locates and displays pages via a software application. The most popular are Firefox, Opera, Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer
Cookie Message: given to a web browser by a web server. The message is then stored by the browser on your computer in a text file called cookie.txt. Each time the browser requests a page from the server, this message is sent back. A cookie's main objective is to identify users and personalise their visit by customising web pages for them, for example by welcoming them by name next time they visit the same site. A site using cookies will usually invite you to provide personal information such as your name, email and interests.
IP (Internet Protocol): All networks connected to the Internet use IP Protocol, which is the technical standard that allows data to be transmitted between two devices.
TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol): is responsible for making sure messages get from one host to another and that the messages are understood
IP address: If you are connected to the Internet you have one, for example it may look something like this 198.202.11.9
Web Server: Delivers (serves up) web pages to your computer