Skip to content
Schierle South Africa

Privacy policy

Ferrotrade International (Pty) Ltd t/a Schierle South Africa

Last updated: September 2026

This policy explains how we collect, use, share and protect your personal information when you use this website, and what rights you have. It is written to meet our obligations under the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 ("POPIA").

1. Who is responsible for your information

We are the "responsible party" for your personal information under POPIA.

Ferrotrade International (Pty) Ltd t/a Schierle South Africa
Registration number: 2000/030071/07
Unit 20, Green Drop Business Park
104 EP Malan Street
Pomona
Kempton Park
1619
South Africa

Telephone: +27 (0) 72 081 0007
E-mail: danie.els@schierle.co.za

2. Information Officer

Our registered Information Officer under POPIA is:

Danie Els
E-mail: danie.els@schierle.co.za

Direct any question, request or complaint about your personal information to the Information Officer.

3. What we collect, and why

We only collect what we need to answer you and to do business with you. We do not sell your personal information, and we do not use it for automated decision-making or profiling.

Enquiry and quotation forms

This website has three forms: a general contact form, a custom solutions request, and a request for quotation built from the online catalogue.

Depending on the form, we collect your name, company, e-mail address, telephone number and the content of your message, including any dimensions, grades, quantities and specifications you give us. The custom solutions form also accepts a technical drawing or file that you choose to upload.

We process this to respond to your enquiry, to prepare a quotation, and to carry out or prepare a contract with you. Where you have given consent, we also rely on that consent.

Correspondence

If you contact us by e-mail or telephone instead, we keep your details and the content of that correspondence for the same purposes.

Server logs

Our hosting provider records standard technical data — IP address, browser type, operating system, referring page, and the date and time of the request. This is necessary to deliver the site securely and reliably, and to detect and prevent abuse. We do not combine it with your other information.

Cookies

This site sets one cookie, named ssy_consent, which stores your own cookie choice so we do not ask again on every page. It lasts 180 days and contains no personal information.

The cookie banner also offers an optional "statistics" category. No analytics or tracking service is currently loaded on this site, so choosing it has no further effect today. If we add one, we will update this policy and the banner before it runs.

4. Consent, and withdrawing it

Where we rely on your consent — for example the consent checkbox on our forms — you may withdraw it at any time by writing to danie.els@schierle.co.za. Withdrawing consent does not affect processing that already took place lawfully before you withdrew it, and it does not affect information we must keep to meet a legal obligation.

5. Who we share it with

We do not sell, rent or trade your personal information. We share it only with parties who help us run this website and respond to you, and only as far as they need it. These parties act as our "operators" under POPIA and are bound to keep it confidential and secure.

  • Vercel Inc. — website hosting and delivery.
  • Resend (Plus Five Five, Inc.) — delivery of the e-mails our forms generate.
  • Members of the Schierle Group, where your enquiry concerns a product or service they supply. Enquiries about custom solutions are copied to group management, because that service is delivered through the group's partner network.

We may also disclose personal information where the law requires it, or to establish, exercise or defend a legal claim.

6. Sending information outside South Africa

Our hosting and e-mail providers process information outside South Africa, including in the European Union and the United States.

Section 72 of POPIA permits this where the recipient is subject to a law, binding corporate rules or a binding agreement that provides a level of protection substantially similar to POPIA. Our providers are subject to the EU General Data Protection Regulation and/or are bound to us by data processing agreements on those terms. Our e-mail delivery is configured to the provider's EU (Ireland) region.

7. How we protect your information

We take appropriate, reasonable technical and organisational measures as required by section 19 of POPIA. This site is served over encrypted HTTPS/TLS, form submissions are transmitted over that encrypted connection, and access to enquiry mailboxes is limited to the staff who need it.

No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, so we cannot guarantee absolute security. If a security compromise affects your personal information, we will notify you and the Information Regulator as section 22 of POPIA requires.

8. How long we keep it

We keep personal information only as long as we need it for the purpose it was collected, or as long as the law requires.

  • Enquiries that do not lead to business: normally up to two years from our last contact with you.
  • Customer and supplier records, including quotations and orders that lead to a transaction: as long as company, tax and other legislation requires, which is generally five years from the end of the relevant financial year.
  • The ssy_consent cookie: 180 days, or until you clear it in your browser.

We delete or de-identify personal information once it is no longer needed.

9. Your rights

Under POPIA you have the right to:

  • be told what personal information we hold about you, and to ask for a copy of it (sections 23 and 24);
  • correct or delete information that is inaccurate, irrelevant, excessive, out of date, incomplete, misleading or unlawfully obtained (section 24);
  • object to our processing on reasonable grounds (section 11(3));
  • withdraw consent where our processing rests on it;
  • not receive unsolicited direct marketing, and to ask us to stop at any time (section 69);
  • complain to the Information Regulator (section 74).

Send any of these requests to the Information Officer at danie.els@schierle.co.za. We may ask you to verify your identity first. We will respond within a reasonable time, and normally within 30 days.

A request for access to a record is made under the Promotion of Access to Information Act 2 of 2000 ("PAIA") and may attract the prescribed fee. Our PAIA manual is available on written request to the address above.

10. Complaints to the Information Regulator

If you are not satisfied with how we have handled your personal information, you may complain to:

The Information Regulator (South Africa)
Website: https://inforegulator.org.za

We would appreciate the chance to resolve your concern first — please contact our Information Officer before you escalate.

11. Children

This website is aimed at businesses and is not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect the personal information of a child without the consent of a competent person. If you believe we have, contact the Information Officer and we will delete it.

12. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as our processing or the law changes. The date at the top shows when it last changed. Material changes will be brought to your attention on this page.

13. Contact

Information Officer: Danie Els
E-mail: danie.els@schierle.co.za
Telephone: +27 (0) 72 081 0007
Post: Unit 20, Green Drop Business Park, 104 EP Malan Street, Pomona, Kempton Park 1619, South Africa