Privacy: your information, your choices

Who is responsible?

Royal International Miss SA (RIMSA) is run by Royal South African Miss (Pty) Ltd, the responsible party for the personal information it processes for the pageant. Contact us at admin@rimsa.co.za or +27 71 670 9050.

Our published privacy contact address is EROS ROAD BLOCK 13, BOARDWALK OFFICE PARK, FAERIE GLEN, GAUTENG, 0044, South Africa.

Information Officer

Our Information Officer under the Protection of Personal Information Act is Jacqueline Fourie. Email fouriejacqueline70@gmail.com or call +27 79 562 1732 with any privacy question, request or complaint.

What information is used?

• Browsing: page visits, device and browser information, approximate location and interactions such as registration, ticket and contact-link clicks. Analytics use browser identifiers and may involve IP addresses during transmission. These are not necessarily anonymous personal information under POPIA, even though the reports are intended to describe usage rather than identify you.
• Enquiries: the name, contact details and message you choose to send by email, phone, WhatsApp or social media, so we can respond.
• Registration: information you provide in the separate ConvertX registration form at app.rimsa.co.za, to administer your application and participation. The age finder on this website calculates a division in your browser; its date-of-birth input is not sent by our analytics code.
• Tickets and payments: order, contact, billing and transaction information entered on tickets.rimsa.co.za. That site uses WooCommerce and Paystack. The new information website does not take payments or receive card details through its analytics code.

We use information to answer enquiries, administer applications and the pageant, fulfil ticket orders and payments, understand website use and measure advertising with Google and Meta unless you switch these off below. The linked services may have their own notices and cookie controls; your choice on this website does not change their settings.

We process personal information on the grounds POPIA allows: with your consent, to take steps you ask for or to perform an agreement with you (such as your registration or ticket order), to comply with the law, and for our legitimate interest in running and promoting the pageant. The registration form shows which fields are required; without them we cannot process an application.

Entrants under 18 must be registered by a parent or legal guardian, who gives consent for the child's information and for photographs taken at RIMSA events to be used for the pageant and its promotion. A parent or guardian may withdraw that consent for future use at any time.

Cookies and your choices

Google Analytics 4 and advertising measurement with Google and Meta Pixel run by default. You can switch them off independently using the choices below. Untick a box and select Save choices to opt out, or tick it again and save to switch it back on.

Your choices and the time you saved them are stored in your browser's localStorage under rimsa_consent_v1, with no automatic expiry. If browser storage is blocked, your choices apply only while this page remains open. Clearing site data removes your saved choices and restores the defaults.

When enabled, Google Analytics may use _ga and _ga_* cookies to distinguish visits. Our code requests a one-year cookie lifetime. With Advertising enabled, Meta may use cookies such as _fbp and _fbc to measure page views, registration-link clicks (Lead) and contact-link clicks (Contact). These clicks are not proof of a completed registration or payment.

Our custom link events use fixed labels and redacted destinations, not names, email addresses, telephone numbers, messages, form values, query strings or URL fragments. Terms and Conditions PDF downloads are left to Google's enhanced measurement if it is enabled, without a second custom download event.

Google's script still loads when you opt out of Analytics, but we set its analytics-disable flag and deny analytics storage immediately and on later visits. Switching off Advertising denies Google's advertising consent fields and stops our Meta events. If Meta is already loaded, we send it a consent-revoke instruction; on later visits it is not loaded. This cannot recall information already sent. Browser privacy controls and ad blockers can also block measurement scripts or delete existing cookies and site data. Google provides an Analytics opt-out browser add-on, and you can review Meta ad preferences.

Google and Meta set and manage their own cookies, and their lifetimes may change. Their privacy policies, linked below, describe how long they keep the information they collect.

Service providers and international processing

The services described here include ConvertX for registration, WooCommerce and Paystack for tickets and payments, Google for Analytics and optional advertising measurement, and Meta for advertising measurement if enabled. Clicking WhatsApp or social links takes you to those services. Hosting and service providers may process technical information to deliver and protect their services.

Some providers may process information outside South Africa. See Google's privacy policy and Meta's privacy policy for their explanations.

We share personal information with service providers only so far as needed for them to provide their services to us, and we require them to keep it confidential and secure. Where information is processed outside South Africa, we rely on providers that are subject to laws, binding rules or agreements giving it protection comparable to POPIA, as section 72 of POPIA requires.

Retention and security

We keep personal information only for as long as we need it for the purpose it was collected for, or as long as the law requires (for example, financial records for at least five years). After that we delete or anonymise it. Website analytics data is kept for up to 14 months.

We protect personal information with reasonable technical and organisational measures, including access controls, encrypted connections and reputable service providers. If we believe personal information has been accessed without authorisation, we will notify the Information Regulator and the people affected as POPIA requires.

Your POPIA rights

Subject to the conditions and exceptions in the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (POPIA), you may ask whether we hold your personal information, request access, ask for incorrect information to be corrected, request deletion where applicable, object to processing on permitted grounds, and withdraw consent where processing relies on it. Withdrawal does not undo processing that has already taken place lawfully.

Send a request to admin@rimsa.co.za, explaining the information or processing concerned. We may need to verify your identity before disclosing or changing records. Do not send identity documents until RIMSA explains what is required and how to supply them securely.

You may complain to the Information Regulator (South Africa). Its website provides current complaint procedures and forms. You can switch off website measurement directly through the cookie choices on this page without making an access request.