support for businesses seeking to become more enterprising

+27 12 012 6060

The mandate of Local Enterprise and Association Development (LEAD)

The Local Enterprise and Association Development (LEAD) helps South African companies to pursue further growth opportunities. In this way, we support sustainable economic growth, regional development and secure employment.

  1. Principles

    Local Enterprise and Association Development (LEAD) is committed to protecting your privacy. The following Privacy Policy is intended to explain which personal data LEAD processes when providing you with services or when you visit the website www.LEAD.org.za and visit or use other online platforms operated by LEAD.

    LEAD collects and process your personal data with care, and only does so for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy, to the extent necessary for these and within the scope of the applicable statutory provisions.

    If you register on the LEAD website or any LEAD online platform, you warrant that the personal data and other information submitted are accurate and, in the case of registration on behalf of a third party, that you are authorized to register and disclose the personal data of such third party.

  2. Data controller and contact

    Unless stated otherwise, Local Enterprise and Association Development (LEAD), based in Pretoria, is responsible for the data processing described in this Privacy Policy. If you have any data protection concerns, please contact us at the following address:

    Local Enterprise and Association Development (LEAD)
    LEAD House
    147 Justice Mahomed Street,
    Brooklyn, Pretoria, Gauteng, 0081
    Telephone: +27 12 012 6060
    Email: contactus@lead.org.za

  3. Services and online platforms of LEAD

    In particular, LEAD provides the following services for both association members and non-members, within the scope of which LEAD can collect and process personal data:
    • Consulting services
    • Information services
    • Event and trade fair services
    • Rental services.

  4. Collection and processing of personal data

    In connection with the provision of services by LEAD and in order to become a client, you provide LEAD with the personal data required for this purpose. As a rule, there is no legal obligation to provide LEAD with data. However, without this personal data, LEAD will not be able to provide the services for you or the company you represent. Likewise, the LEAD website and online platforms cannot be used if certain personal data is not disclosed.

    Personal data is all data with which you can be identified as a natural person (namely last name, first name, address, e-mail address, function, IP address, etc.). In addition, personal data may also contain data about the company you represent (e.g. company name, address, telephone number, etc.).

    When registering as a client with the LEAD, in addition to the aforementioned personal data, data on revenue, number of employees, area of activity, etc. of the organisation employees may also be collected and processed. To the extent permitted, LEAD also extracts certain data from publicly accessible sources and merges this data with the data that you submit directly to LEAD.

    The collected personal data is processed exclusively in South Africa, in a country where Local Enterprise and Association Development (LEAD) has office. If data processing takes place in a third country, LEAD will stipulate that third parties comply with the necessary data protection provisions in an appropriate manner, e.g. by contract.

  5. Purposes of data processing

    General processing
    • LEAD primarily uses the personal data that LEAD collects to provide its services and to make the website, downloadable content and documents as well as online platforms available to you. Furthermore, LEAD processes your personal data as a clent in order to manage the business relationship.
    • In addition, LEAD also processes personal data for the following purposes where LEAD has a legitimate interest in accordance with the purpose:
      • Offer and further development of our offers, services and websites, apps and online platforms
      • Review and optimization of procedures for needs assessment
      • Advertising and marketing (including the organization of events)
      • Assertion of legal claims and defense in connection with legal disputes and official proceedings
      • Participation in the prevention and clarification of criminal offenses and other misconduct (e.g. conducting internal investigations; data analyses to combat fraud, etc.)
      • Ensuring operations, in particular of the IT, websites, apps and online platforms

    • Information, newsletter and chat
      If you have submitted your personal data to LEAD (regardless of the form and channel used by LEAD), you agree to being contacted by LEAD, the South African Business Hubs of LEAD abroad and other network partners (namely chambers of commerce, universities, etc.; an overview is available at www.LEAD.org.za/network) by letter, telephone or e-mail to inform you about their own or general economic business activities. If you are no longer interested in receiving information and no longer wish to be contacted, you can inform LEAD accordingly at any time.

      LEAD also sends registered prospective customers a regular newsletter by e-mail, which contains general information about the markets, international business opportunities, events and trade fairs of LEAD, etc. Subscribers who are no longer interested in the newsletter can unsubscribe at any time.

      LEAD also operates a chat service on its websites and online platforms in order to respond promptly to customer inquiries. The personal data transmitted by you via the chat will be processed in order to process your inquiry.

  6. Cookies, tracking and other technologies

    LEAD typically uses cookies and similar technologies on its websites to identify your browser or device. A cookie is a small file that is sent to your computer or automatically stored on your computer or mobile device by the web browser you use when you visit the websites. This enables LEAD to recognize you when you visit our websites again, even if LEAD does not know who you are. In addition to cookies that are only used during a session and deleted after your visit to the website (session cookies), cookies can also be used to store user settings and other information for a specific period of time (e.g. two years) (persistent cookies). However, you can set your browser to reject cookies, to save them only for one session or to delete them prematurely (tools.google.com). Most browsers are set so that you automatically accept cookies. LEAD generally uses session cookies to help us better understand how you use the offers and content of LEAD. If you block cookies, it is possible that certain functions of LEAD’s website or online platforms may no longer work.

    In the log files of LEAD’s websites and online platforms, access data is stored in a server log file. In particular, the following data is recorded in the log files: The time, the http status, the request (made to the server by the user’s browser), the referral website (from which the user came to the requested page), the product and version information of the browser used (user agent). The log files can be used for the further development of the LEAD websites and online platforms as well as to detect possible errors, e.g. faulty links or program errors. LEAD or third parties commissioned by LEAD may link the page views and uses stored in the server log or via code sections to individual persons. LEAD reserves the right to use data from log files if it suspects that users are using the websites or online platforms illegally or in violation of the contract or in order to further develop and optimize their own offers.
    In some cases and to the extent permitted, LEAD may also include visible and invisible pixels in the LEAD newsletters or marketing emails; when retrieved, LEAD’s servers can determine whether and when you opened the email, so that LEAD can also measure and better understand how you use the offers of LEAD and tailor them to you. You can block this in your email program. LEAD also uses technologies for the online platforms on which you have registered that allow LEAD servers to determine how you use the LEAD online platforms. By registering for an online platform, you expressly agree to this.

    LEAD uses Google Analytics or comparable services on its websites and online platforms. These are services provided by third parties, who may be located in any country in the world (in the case of Google Analytics, it is Google Inc., 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA, google.com), which enables LEAD to measure and evaluate the use of the websites and online platforms (non-personal). Cookies set by the service provider are also used for this purpose. The information generated by the cookie about your use of the LEAD websites and online platforms (including your anonymized IP address) is transmitted to a Google server and stored there. The third-party service provider may track your use of the websites and online platforms, combine this information with data from other websites and online platforms you have visited and which are also tracked by the third-party service provider, and use this information for its own purposes (e.g. managing advertising). If you have registered with the third-party service provider yourself, the third-party service provider also knows who you are. The processing of your personal data by the third-party service provider is then carried out under the responsibility of the service provider in accordance with its privacy policy. The third-party service provider merely informs LEAD how LEAD’s respective website is used. LEAD does not receive any information about you personally.

    In addition to Google Analytics, LEAD uses other analysis and evaluation tools. These analysis and evaluation tools include in particular:

    • the user-friendliness analysis by HotJar, Hotjar Ltd., Malta
    • Google Optimize for conducting A/B testing, Google Inc., USA
    • Google Datastudio reports, Google Ireland Limited, Ireland
    • the analysis software from Tableau, Seattle/USA
    • Thunderhead One from Thunderhead, based in USA (Boston) for customer journey visualization, orchestration, and optimization
    • software from Permagroup GmbH, based in Germany
    • software from Bisnode AG (Bisnode Website Analytics), based in Sweden and
    • software from Vordaten, based in Steinhausen, ZG,

    to track user behaviour and identify companies visiting the LEAD website and to acquire potential customers. Using IP addresses, it tracks the pages visited and the frequency of the visit. The information collected during the tracking is used for marketing activities.

    Furthermore, the LEAD websites and online platforms use Google Ads to advertise to past visitors to the LEAD websites and online platforms on third-party websites (including Google). This may mean that LEAD may ask past visitors who have not completed a task on the LEAD websites and online platforms, such as filling out a contact form, to send a inquiry. The application may take the form of an advertisement on the Google search results page or in the Google Display Network. Third-party providers, including Google, use cookies as a means of displaying an earlier visit to the LEAD websites. If you do not wish to participate in LEAD’s Google Ads remarketing, you can opt-out by customizing the Google Ads Preference Manager.

    In addition, the LEAD websites and online platforms use the Google Maps product from Google Inc. in the USA (www.google.com). By using the LEAD websites and online platforms, you consent to the collection, processing and use of automatically collected data by Google Inc., its agents and third parties.

    LEAD also uses social media tags (plugins) from social networks such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube on its websites and online platforms. These tags enable detailed campaign reports and conversion tracking for the ads and content posted on social networks. In addition, valuable information about the visitors to the websites can be obtained and a retargeting of these website visitors can be carried out.

    By the use of Google Lead Form Extensions and LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms, we will request and use information from users only as reasonably necessary for the limited purpose described in our lead forms and in accordance with our privacy policy. We will not sell the information provided by users or otherwise abuse that information. The user data will be collected and stored by Google for 30 days and by LinkedIn for 90 days and will not be shared with third parties.

  7. Transmission of data to third parties

    • General information
      LEAD also uses the personal data transmitted to enable third parties in South Africa or abroad to perform technical, logistical or other services on behalf of LEAD (e.g. banks, insurance companies, IT providers, online shop providers, etc.). If LEAD passes on your personal data to third parties, LEAD will do so if it is necessary in order to provide the services or to perform technical services for the website and online platforms. These third parties will not use your personal data for its own purposes unless otherwise stated, or you explicitly consent to a different use by the third party. Insofar as you consent to the data protection provisions of third-party platforms in the context of the use of LEAD’s services, you are thereby aware that these may differ from this data protection provision and that LEAD has no influence on the use of the data by these third parties.

      If data is transferred to countries that do not have an equivalent level of data protection to South Africa, LEAD will agree compliance with the necessary data protection provisions with the third parties in an appropriate manner, e.g. by contract.

      If you participate in an LEAD Partner Workshop, your participant data will also be transmitted to the respective partner, who may use the data for its own (marketing) purposes. LEAD is therefore not responsible for the use of your data by the respective partner, and any inquiries on your part should be addressed to the partner.

      When participating in an LEAD online event or similar online events, other participants and speakers may view your data (for example in the case of video and audio transmissions), insofar as this is necessary for the event in question. In this event, you have been informed that third parties can view your data and that you explicitly consent to this disclosure of data by participating in such an event. LEAD has no control over what the respective participants do with these data.

      In connection with the strategic partnership between LEAD and SOS International, certain personal data may be transmitted to SOS International. If you download SOS International documents from the LEAD website and enter your personal data for this purpose, you agree that SOS International may contact you for its own purposes and process your personal data.

      If you download content from LEAD’s partners on the website or the platforms, LEAD may share your information with the partner in question if you consent to this.

    • Partners
      All partners of LEAD are published on the LEAD website (member database). This publication may also contain generally accessible data on association members. By signing the application for partnership /association or submitting the online application form on the LEAD website, LEAD is authorized to do so.

      Partners’ sensitive data concerning, for example, business purpose, market and business interests, employee positions, revenue etc., shall only be passed on to third parties with the partner’s consent.

  8. Duration of personal data retention
    LEAD processes and stores your personal data for as long as is necessary for the fulfillment of contractual and legal obligations or otherwise for the purposes pursued by the processing. Your personal data will be deleted thereafter or upon request, but only to the extent that this does not conflict with legal retention and documentation requirements.

    If an application does not lead to employment at LEAD or any form of business relationship with LEAD, LEAD will store the personal data transmitted for a period of six months and delete it from the systems after this period.

  9. Data security
    To protect your personal data from unauthorized access and misuse, LEAD takes appropriate technical and organizational security measures, such as IT and network security solutions, access controls and restrictions, etc. LEAD restricts access to confidential personal data to those employees who need access to it in order to fulfill the purpose of LEAD.

    The user of the LEAD website and online platforms is aware that there may nevertheless be uncertainties regarding transmissions on the Internet.

  10. Data subject’s rights
    Within the scope of the data protection law applicable to you, and insofar as provided therein, you have the right to information, correction, or deletion of your personal data and to limitation of data processing. Please note that LEAD reserves the right to assert the legally provided restrictions, for example if LEAD is obliged to store or process certain personal data, has an overriding interest in it, or needs it for the assertion of claims. If costs are incurred in connection with your inquiry, you will be informed in advance.

    The exercise the aforementioned rights requires that you clearly prove your identity, e.g. by means of a copy of your identity card. To assert your rights, you can contact LEAD at the address given in Section 2.

  11. Amendments to this Privacy Policy
    LEAD may amend this Privacy Policy at any time without prior notice or specific notification. The version currently published on the LEAD website applies.

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