Privacy Policy & POPIA Notice
How Obliline collects, uses, protects, and shares your personal information — in accordance with South Africa's Protection of Personal Information Act, 4 of 2013.
1. Introduction
Obliline (Pty) Ltd ("Obliline", "we", "us", or "our") is an accredited skills development provider based in South Africa. We are committed to protecting the privacy and personal information of every learner, employer, employee, supplier, and website visitor who interacts with us.
This Privacy Policy explains what personal information we collect, how and why we use it, who we share it with, and the rights you have in relation to that information. It should be read together with our POPIA Compliance Notice below, which describes how we give effect to the Protection of Personal Information Act, 4 of 2013 ("POPIA").
2. Responsible Party & Information Officer
For the purposes of POPIA, Obliline (Pty) Ltd is the "Responsible Party" that determines why and how your personal information is processed. We have appointed an Information Officer who is accountable for our compliance with POPIA and who you may contact about any privacy-related matter.
3. Information We Collect
We collect personal information that is necessary to deliver accredited training, manage learnerships, meet our regulatory obligations, and operate our business. Depending on your relationship with us, this may include:
Learners & applicants
- Identity details — full name, ID or passport number, date of birth, gender, race, and nationality (where required for SETA, QCTO, and B-BBEE reporting)
- Contact details — postal and physical address, email address, and telephone numbers
- Education and employment history, qualifications, and prior learning records
- Enrolment, assessment, attendance, competence, and certification records
- Banking or stipend details where a learnership involves a payment to you
- Disability or medical information where reasonable accommodation is requested
Employers & corporate clients
- Company name, registration number, and contact details of representatives
- Skills development, SDL, and B-BBEE information relevant to learnerships and programmes
Website visitors
- Information you submit through enquiry, contact, or portal forms
- Technical data such as IP address, browser type, and pages visited
4. Why We Process Your Information
We only process personal information for lawful, specific, and clearly defined purposes, including to:
- Register, enrol, assess, and certify learners on accredited programmes
- Administer learnerships, skills programmes, and workplace-based learning
- Report to and meet the requirements of SETAs, the QCTO, SAQA, and other regulators
- Respond to enquiries and provide information you request
- Manage contracts, invoicing, stipends, and payments
- Comply with legal, accreditation, tax, and B-BBEE obligations
- Improve our programmes, services, and website
5. Lawful Basis for Processing
We process personal information only where POPIA permits it — namely with your consent, because it is necessary to conclude or perform a contract with you, to comply with a legal obligation, to protect a legitimate interest, or where processing is necessary for the proper performance of a public-law duty by a competent body. Where we rely on consent, you may withdraw it at any time, although this may affect our ability to provide certain services to you.
7. Cross-Border Transfers
We primarily store and process personal information within South Africa. Where information is transferred to or stored by service providers outside the Republic (for example, cloud hosting), we take reasonable steps to ensure the recipient is subject to laws, binding agreements, or rules that provide an adequate level of protection comparable to POPIA.
8. Security Safeguards
We maintain appropriate, reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect personal information against loss, damage, unauthorised access, and unlawful processing. These include access controls, secure storage, staff confidentiality obligations, and ongoing review of our security practices. In the event of a security compromise affecting your personal information, we will notify you and the Information Regulator as required by POPIA.
9. Retention of Information
We retain personal information only for as long as is necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it was collected, or for as long as required by accreditation bodies, SETAs, the QCTO, and applicable law. Learner and certification records are typically retained for the periods prescribed by the relevant regulator. When information is no longer required, we securely destroy, delete, or de-identify it.
10. POPIA Compliance Notice
Obliline is committed to processing personal information in line with the eight conditions for lawful processing set out in POPIA. In practice, this means:
- Accountability — our Information Officer ensures we comply with POPIA's conditions.
- Processing limitation — we process information lawfully, minimally, and with your consent or another lawful basis.
- Purpose specification — we collect information for specific, explicitly defined purposes only.
- Further processing limitation — any further use is compatible with the original purpose.
- Information quality — we take reasonable steps to keep your information accurate, complete, and up to date.
- Openness — we are transparent about what we collect and why, through this notice.
- Security safeguards — we secure your information with reasonable measures and address any compromises.
- Data subject participation — you may access and correct your information and exercise the rights below.
By submitting an enquiry, application, or consent form on our website, you confirm that you have read and understood this notice and agree to Obliline processing your personal information for the purposes described above. You may withdraw consent at any time by contacting our Information Officer.
11. Your Rights
As a data subject under POPIA, you have the right to:
- Be notified that your personal information is being collected or has been compromised
- Request access to the personal information we hold about you
- Request the correction, updating, or deletion of inaccurate or outdated information
- Object, on reasonable grounds, to the processing of your information
- Withdraw consent where processing is based on consent
- Lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator
To exercise any of these rights, please contact our Information Officer using the details in the Contact section below.
12. Right to be Forgotten & Record Erasure
Under Section 24 of POPIA, you have the right to request the correction, destruction, or deletion of your personal information where we are no longer authorised to retain it.
Please understand that if you request the complete erasure of your personal details ("Right to be Forgotten"):
- Obliline will permanently purge your learner file, assessment logs, attendance histories, and internal qualification records from our systems.
- Should you require proof of training, replacement Statements of Results (SORs), or verification of qualifications in the future, Obliline will no longer hold any record of your training and will be unable to assist you.
- For any missing SORs, assessment results, or qualification verifications post-erasure, you will be required to contact the Quality Council for Trades and Occupations (QCTO) or consult the National Learners' Records Database (NLRD) via SAQA directly.
14. Complaints to the Information Regulator
If you believe we have not handled your personal information lawfully and we are unable to resolve your concern directly, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator of South Africa:
15. Changes to This Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy and POPIA Notice from time to time to reflect changes in our practices or legal requirements. The latest version will always be published on this page with an updated "Last updated" date. We encourage you to review it periodically.
16. Contact Us
If you have any questions about this policy, or wish to exercise your rights, please contact our Information Officer: