The short version
We are a solar equipment and appliance supplier. This website has no accounts, no shopping cart and no customer database. The only personal information we ask for is what you type into the quote form so that we can quote you — your name, your phone number, your email address and what you need. It goes to our inbox as an email. We do not sell it, we do not share it with anyone outside the list below, and you can ask us to delete it at any time.
Who is responsible
First Light Solar (Pty) Ltd is the responsible party for the personal information described here.
- Address: 91 General Hertzog Street, Dan Pienaar, Bloemfontein, 9301
- Email: office@firstlight-solar.co.za
- WhatsApp: 062 431 1366
- Information Officer: Henrico Janse van Vuuren — office@firstlight-solar.co.za
Registered name: First Light Solar (Pty) Ltd. VAT registration number 4410324141. [Company registration number — to be confirmed before launch.]
What we collect, and why
| What | Why we need it |
|---|---|
| Your name and company | To address you properly and know whether you are buying as a trade customer |
| Your phone number | Most quotes are settled on a call or on WhatsApp — it is faster than email |
| Your email address | To send you the written quote and to reply to your enquiry |
| Your message and the product you asked about | To quote the right item at the right quantity |
| Anonymous usage statistics | To see which pages bring enquiries, so we stock and write about the right things |
We do not ask for an ID number, a physical address, banking details or anything about your finances. If a quote turns into an order, we take those details separately and off this website.
On what basis
When you send the quote form you are asking us to contact you, so we process your information to respond to your request and to take steps toward a contract with you (POPIA section 11(1)(b) and (f)).
Marketing is separate. The quote form has an unticked box asking whether you would like to hear about stock and specials. If you leave it unticked we will only ever reply about your enquiry. If you tick it, you can change your mind at any time by replying “stop” to any message.
Who else sees it
We use a small number of service providers to run this website. They process information on our instruction only, and none of them may use it for their own purposes.
| Provider | What they do | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Netlify | Hosts the website and serves its pages | United States / EU |
| Resend | Delivers the quote form to our inbox as an email | United States |
| Google Analytics | Anonymous page and enquiry statistics | United States / EU |
| Cloudflare Turnstile | Checks the quote form is not being submitted by a bot | Global |
| Meta (WhatsApp) | Sends us a WhatsApp alert when your enquiry arrives, so it is answered the same day rather than sitting in an inbox | United States / Ireland |
| Axxess | Hosts our email and the domain | South Africa |
Some of these providers are outside South Africa, so your information is transferred across a border. POPIA section 72 allows this where the recipient is bound by rules that give substantially similar protection — each provider above is contractually committed to that standard through its data processing terms.
We never sell personal information, and we do not share it with advertisers.
Cookies and statistics
This site uses Google Analytics to count visits and to see which pages lead to enquiries. It is configured deliberately narrowly:
- No cookies are set. The measurement is configured to store nothing on your device, so nothing follows you between visits and every visit is counted as a new one.
- Advertising and personalisation storage are switched off — we run no advertising and we do not build profiles.
- IP addresses are anonymised before they are recorded.
- Statistics are deleted automatically after 14 months.
- Our typefaces are served from our own server, so loading a page here does not tell Google that you visited.
You can block this entirely with your browser’s tracking protection or the Google Analytics opt-out add-on. Nothing on the site stops working if you do.
We set no cookies of any kind — no analytics cookies, no advertising cookies and no third-party tracking pixels. That is also why this site shows you no cookie banner: there is nothing to ask you to consent to.
How long we keep it
- Quote enquiries: kept in our email for as long as the relationship is live, and reviewed annually. Enquiries that did not become customers are deleted after two years.
- Website statistics: 14 months, then deleted automatically.
- Spam-protection records: the website keeps a one-way scrambled version of your IP address for ten minutes to stop the form being flooded. It cannot be turned back into your IP address and nothing is written to disk.
How we protect it
- The whole site is served over HTTPS — nothing you type crosses the network in the clear.
- The quote form is validated, rate-limited and bot-checked before anything is sent.
- Our logs record that an enquiry arrived, never what was in it.
- Access to the inbox is limited to the people who answer quotes.
If personal information is ever compromised, POPIA section 22 requires us to notify the Information Regulator and the people affected as soon as reasonably possible. We have a written procedure for doing that within 72 hours.
Your rights
Under POPIA you may, at no charge:
- ask what personal information we hold about you;
- ask us to correct anything that is wrong;
- ask us to delete it, where we have no legal reason to keep it;
- object to us processing it;
- withdraw your consent to marketing at any time; and
- complain to the Information Regulator.
Email office@firstlight-solar.co.za and we will answer within 30 days. Because we hold enquiries as emails rather than in a database, a deletion request is carried out by hand — we will confirm in writing once it is done.
Complaints
If you are not satisfied with how we have handled your information, you can complain to the Information Regulator of South Africa:
- JD House, 27 Stiemens Street, Braamfontein, Johannesburg, 2001
- POPIAComplaints@inforegulator.org.za
- inforegulator.org.za
Changes
If we change how we handle personal information we will update this page and change the date at the top. Material changes will be flagged on the home page for a month.