Privacy Policy | Jaco Coetzee Attorneys

Effective Date: 21 July 2026
Supersedes the version dated 1 November 2024.

1. Introduction and Commitment

Jaco Coetzee Attorneys ("the Firm," "we," "us," or "our") is committed to protecting the privacy and confidentiality of the personal information we process. This Privacy Policy outlines our practices concerning the collection, use, and protection of personal information.

This policy applies to personal information we collect from clients, potential clients, visitors to our website, and other third parties in the course of conducting our business and providing legal services.

For any questions or requests regarding this policy or your personal information, please contact our Information Officer, whose details are provided in Section 12.

2. What is Personal Information?

Personal information includes any information relating to an identifiable, living, natural person, and where applicable, an identifiable, existing juristic person.

The Firm may collect and process various categories of personal information, including, but not limited to:

Identifying Information: Your name, surname, identity or passport number, and company registration details.
Contact Information: Your email address, physical and postal addresses, and telephone numbers.
Financial Information: Bank account details, billing information, and tax-related information.
Technical Information: Information collected during your visit to our website, such as your IP address, browser type, and browsing behaviour (see Section 9 on Cookies).
Information for Legal Services: Any information you provide to us, or which we obtain from third parties, for the purpose of a legal mandate. This may include information that constitutes "special personal information."

Special Personal Information

In the course of providing legal services, we may be required to process special personal information, which includes information concerning race or ethnic origin, health, biometric information, or alleged criminal conduct. We will only process such information where it is lawful to do so and necessary for the establishment, exercise, or defence of a right in law, and we will afford it a higher level of protection.

3. How We Collect Your Personal Information

We collect personal information through various means, including:

Directly from you: When you engage us for legal services, contact us with an enquiry, or provide information during our client onboarding process.
Through our website: When you complete the enquiry form on our Contact page. Enquiries submitted through that form are delivered directly to the Firm's own email infrastructure so that your enquiry can be answered.
From third parties: Where necessary for a legal matter, we may obtain information from public records (e.g., Deeds Office), courts, other parties involved in a matter, or expert witnesses.

4. Our Purposes and Lawful Basis for Processing

We process your personal information for specific, explicit, and legitimate reasons.

Purposes for Processing

To provide legal advice and services as per our client mandate.
To conduct client onboarding procedures, including "Know Your Client" (KYC) and compliance checks required by law (e.g., FICA).
To manage our client relationships, including administration, billing, and communication.
To comply with our legal, professional, regulatory, and risk management obligations.
For internal record-keeping, auditing, and business development purposes.
To respond to your enquiries.
To send you legal updates or firm news, where you have provided your consent to receive such communications.

Lawful Bases for Processing

Our processing of your personal information will be founded on one of the following lawful bases:

Contractual Necessity: The processing is necessary for us to enter into or perform under our contract (our mandate) with you.
Legal Obligation: The processing is necessary for us to comply with a legal or professional obligation placed upon the Firm.
Legitimate Interest: The processing is necessary for the legitimate interests of the Firm or a third party, provided these interests are not overridden by your rights.
Consent: Where we rely on your consent for a specific processing activity (such as direct marketing), we will obtain it from you explicitly. You may withdraw your consent at any time.

5. Disclosure of Your Information

We uphold our professional duty of attorney-client confidentiality. We do not sell, lease, or distribute your personal information to unauthorised third parties.

We may disclose your personal information only in the following circumstances:

To our service providers and agents who process information on our behalf (e.g., IT support, cloud storage providers), under strict confidentiality agreements.
To third parties who are integral to the provision of our legal services, such as advocates, sheriffs, correspondent attorneys, experts, and translators.
To courts, tribunals, and regulatory bodies where we are required to do so by law, a court order, or professional rules.
Where you have provided your express consent for us to do so.

Enquiries submitted through our website are held within the Firm's own infrastructure and are accessible only to attorneys and staff of the Firm who require access in order to respond to you or act on your instruction.

6. Data Security

We are committed to ensuring that your personal information is secure. We have implemented and maintain appropriate, reasonable technical and organisational security measures to prevent the loss of, damage to, unauthorised destruction of, and unlawful access to or processing of your personal information.

7. Data Retention

We will retain your personal information for no longer than is necessary for the purposes for which it was collected and processed. The applicable retention period is determined by considering our legal, regulatory, and professional obligations, including prescription periods for legal claims and statutory record-keeping requirements.

8. Your Legal Rights

You have the following rights in relation to the personal information we hold about you:

Right of Access: You may request confirmation of whether we hold personal information about you and request a copy thereof. This process is governed by the Promotion of Access to Information Act, 2 of 2000 (PAIA).
Right to Correction: You have the right to request that we correct or update any of your personal information that you believe is inaccurate, incomplete, or outdated.
Right to Object: You may object, on reasonable grounds relating to your particular situation, to the processing of your personal information, unless legislation provides for such processing.
Right to Withdraw Consent: Where we process your information based on your consent, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time.
Right to Complain: You have the right to lodge a complaint with the relevant regulatory authority for data protection if you believe that we have not processed your personal information lawfully.

To exercise any of these rights, please contact our Information Officer.

The relevant regulatory authority is the Information Regulator (South Africa):
Website: inforegulator.org.za
POPIA complaints: POPIAComplaints@inforegulator.org.za
PAIA complaints: PAIAComplaints@inforegulator.org.za
General enquiries: enquiries@inforegulator.org.za

9. Cookies and Website Use

A cookie is a small text file placed on your device by a website. We keep our use of cookies to a minimum. This website does not use advertising cookies, social media cookies, or third-party analytics or tracking cookies. We do not profile visitors, and we do not sell or share browsing data.

The only cookie this website sets is a strictly necessary one that records that you have acknowledged our cookie notice, so that the notice is not shown to you on every page. It contains no personal information.

This website loads a typeface from Google Fonts. That request does not set a cookie, but it does disclose your IP address to Google in order for the font file to be delivered. Our web server also keeps standard access logs, which may record your IP address, the pages requested and the time of the request, for security and diagnostic purposes.

You may disable cookies through your browser settings. Because the only cookie we set is the one described above, disabling it has no effect other than that the notice will appear again on each visit. Full detail is set out in our Cookie Policy. If we add functionality that uses additional cookies, this policy and the Cookie Policy will be updated and, where the law requires it, your consent will be obtained before those cookies are set.

10. Links to Other Websites

Our website may contain links to other websites of interest. However, once you have used these links to leave our site, you should note that we do not have any control over that other website. Therefore, we cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you provide whilst visiting such sites, and such sites are not governed by this privacy statement. You should exercise caution and review the privacy policy applicable to the website in question.

11. Changes to this Policy

We may amend this Privacy Policy from time to time. The latest version will always be published on our website. Should we make any material changes, we will notify you by means of a prominent notice on our website prior to the change becoming effective.

12. How to Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or wish to exercise your rights, please contact our designated Information Officer:

Information Officer: HJ COETZEE
Email Address: info@jcoetzeeatt.co.za
Physical Address: 38 Valley View Estate, 9 Dakota Avenue, Helderkruin, Roodepoort

See also our Cookie Policy, Access to Information manual and Disclaimer.