Privacy policy

This policy explains what personal information MunicipalitiesSA collects through MunicipalitiesSA, why, and what you can do about it. It is written to meet the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (POPIA), which is the law that applies to this site, and covers the points required by the General Data Protection Regulation for visitors in Europe.

Effective from 1 August 2026.

Who is responsible

The responsible party, in POPIA terms, is:

• MunicipalitiesSA
• South Africa
• Email: [email protected]

The short version

We do not require you to create an account, and we do not sell personal information. Most of what this site publishes is public-record government data about institutions, not about individuals. The personal information we hold is limited to what you send us, plus the ordinary technical data any website receives.

What we collect

Information you give us

If you use the contact form we collect your name, your email address, the subject you select, any municipality you name, and your message. We use it to reply to you and to act on corrections. We keep correspondence for as long as it is useful for that purpose, and then delete it.

Information collected automatically

Like almost every website, our server records technical information when you visit: your IP address, browser type and version, operating system, the pages you request, the time of the request, and the page that referred you. This is used to keep the site running, to detect abuse, and to understand which pages are useful.

Information we do not collect

We do not ask for identity numbers, financial details, or any special personal information as defined in POPIA. We do not knowingly collect information from children.

Information about public officials

This site publishes the names, titles and official contact details of people who hold public office in South African municipalities: mayors, speakers, municipal managers, chief financial officers, councillors and senior officials. This information is published by the municipalities themselves and by National Treasury, and it relates to the performance of a public function rather than to private life.

We publish it because holding public office is a matter of legitimate public interest, and because a directory of local government is of little use if it does not say who is responsible. We do not publish personal contact details, home addresses or private information about officials. If you hold public office and believe something published here about you is inaccurate, please contact us and we will correct it against the source.

Cookies and similar technologies

The site itself sets only what is necessary to work, including a session cookie if you submit a form and a preference cookie if you change a display setting. The full detail, including how to control cookies in your browser, is in the cookie policy.

Advertising

This site may carry advertising in order to fund the work of collecting and publishing the data. Where it does:

• Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve advertisements based on your prior visits to this or other websites.
• Google’s use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve advertisements to you based on your visit to this and other sites on the internet.
• You can opt out of personalised advertising by visiting Google’s Ads Settings, at google.com/settings/ads.
• You can opt out of a third-party vendor’s use of cookies for personalised advertising at aboutads.info/choices.
• Third-party vendors we do not control may also serve cookies. Their use of your information is governed by their own privacy policies.

We do not pass your name, email address or any information you send through the contact form to advertisers.

Analytics

We may use analytics services to understand which pages are read and how people arrive at the site. Where analytics are in use, they are configured to limit the personal information collected, and the data is used in aggregate to improve the site rather than to identify individuals.

Who we share information with

We do not sell personal information. We share it only with:

• Our hosting and email providers, who process it on our behalf in order to run the site and deliver messages.
• Advertising and analytics providers, to the extent described above.
• Anyone we are legally required to share it with, for example under a court order or a lawful request from a regulator.

Where your information is held

Our providers may store or process information outside South Africa. Where information is transferred across a border, we take reasonable steps to ensure it receives protection comparable to that required by POPIA.

How we protect it

The site is served over an encrypted connection. Access to the systems holding correspondence is restricted to people who need it. No system is perfectly secure, and we do not claim otherwise, but we take reasonable and appropriate technical and organisational measures to safeguard what we hold.

Your rights under POPIA

You have the right to:

• Ask whether we hold personal information about you, and to request a copy of it.
• Ask us to correct or delete information that is inaccurate, irrelevant, excessive, out of date, incomplete, misleading or obtained unlawfully.
• Object to our processing of your personal information on reasonable grounds.
• Complain to the Information Regulator of South Africa.

To exercise any of these, email [email protected]. We will respond within a reasonable period. We may need to confirm your identity first, so that we do not disclose information to the wrong person.

The Information Regulator

If you are not satisfied with how we have handled your personal information, you may complain to the Information Regulator of South Africa. Its contact details are published at inforegulator.org.za.

Links to other sites

Municipality profiles link to municipal websites and to documents hosted by National Treasury. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of those sites, and this policy does not apply to them.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as the site changes or as the law does. The effective date at the top shows when it was last revised. Material changes will be noted on this page.

Contact

Questions about this policy, or about personal information generally, go to [email protected], or through the contact form.