1. About this policy
ScoreLine is a South African sports publication covering soccer, rugby and cricket at scoreline.co.za (the “Site”). This policy explains what personal information we collect when you use the Site, why we collect it, who we share it with, how long we keep it, and what you can ask us to do about it.
It is written to meet the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (“POPIA”). Where this policy uses terms that POPIA defines, such as “personal information”, “processing”, “responsible party” and “operator”, we use them in the sense POPIA gives them.
This policy applies to scoreline.co.za and to any email or contact form message you send us. It replaces every earlier privacy policy published by this publication, including the version dated 10 October 2024. Personal information collected while the earlier policy was in force is now handled under this one.
It does not apply to third-party sites we link to, or to the social platforms we publish on. Those are covered by their own policies.
2. Who is responsible for your information
ScoreLine is published by Kuala Publishing.
| Responsible party | Kuala Publishing, trading as ScoreLine |
|---|---|
| Physical address | Boksburg, Gauteng, 1459 |
| Privacy and data requests | privacy@scoreline.co.za |
| General enquiries | hello@scoreline.co.za |
Any request, question or complaint about how we handle your personal information can be sent to privacy@scoreline.co.za.
3. What we collect
3.1 Information you give us
- Contact form. When you use the form on our Contact page we collect your name, email address, subject line and message. Every field is voluntary. You choose what to tell us.
- Email. If you email us directly we hold your address and whatever you include in the message and its attachments.
- Story tips and corrections. If you send us a tip, a correction or a complaint about an article, we keep it and our reply so we have a record of how it was handled.
- Social platforms. If you follow, message or interact with us on Facebook, X, TikTok or our WhatsApp Channel, that interaction happens on the platform. We see only what the platform shows publishers, which is usually your public profile and aggregated audience numbers. We do not receive your phone number from the WhatsApp Channel.
3.2 Information collected automatically
When you visit the Site, our hosting infrastructure and the third-party services described in sections 5 and 6 record:
- your IP address
- device type, browser, operating system and screen size
- the pages you view, how long you spend on them and how you move between them
- the page or search that referred you to us
- date and time of your visit
- an approximate location derived from your IP address, at city or regional level, never a precise position
- identifiers stored in cookies and similar technologies
3.3 What we do not collect
To be clear about what the Site does not do:
- We do not offer reader accounts or logins.
- Comments are not enabled, so we hold no comment data.
- We take no payments on the Site and hold no card or banking details.
- We do not currently run an email newsletter and hold no mailing list.
- We do not knowingly collect special personal information as defined in section 26 of POPIA, such as health, religious or political information, and we do not ask for it.
If any of this changes, we will update this policy before the change goes live.
4. Why we process your information, and on what legal basis
POPIA allows processing only where one of the grounds in section 11 applies. This is what we do and why we are allowed to do it.
| What we do | Information used | POPIA ground |
|---|---|---|
| Serve the Site, keep it running and protect it against attack and abuse | IP address, technical and log data | Our legitimate interests in operating a secure, functioning publication (s11(1)(f)) |
| Reply to your message, tip, correction or complaint | Name, email, message content | Your consent, given by choosing to contact us (s11(1)(a)), and our legitimate interests in responding (s11(1)(f)) |
| Understand which articles are read, how readers arrive and where the Site performs badly | Analytics data and cookie identifiers | Your consent to non-essential cookies (s11(1)(a)) |
| Display advertising that funds our journalism, including personalised advertising where you allow it | Advertising cookies and identifiers | Your consent (s11(1)(a)) |
| Keep a record of corrections, complaints and how we handled them | Correspondence | Our legitimate interests in editorial accountability (s11(1)(f)) |
| Meet legal obligations and defend legal claims | Any relevant information | Compliance with an obligation imposed by law (s11(1)(c)) |
Where we rely on your consent, you can withdraw it at any time. Withdrawing consent does not affect processing that already happened while the consent was in force.
5. Cookies and similar technologies
We use cookies and similar technologies to keep the Site working, to measure how it is used, and to serve advertising. Only strictly necessary cookies are set without your agreement. Everything else is set on the basis of the choice you make in our cookie banner, and you can change that choice at any time.
Our Cookie Policy lists the categories we use, what each one does and how to control them.
6. Advertising
ScoreLine uses Google AdSense to display advertisements on the Site. The following applies:
- Google and its partners use cookies and similar identifiers to serve ads based on your previous visits to this Site and other sites.
- Google’s use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to you based on that activity. This is explained in How Google uses information from sites or apps that use our services.
- You can opt out of personalised advertising from Google at My Ad Center.
- You can opt out of personalised advertising from participating third-party vendors at optout.aboutads.info or youronlinechoices.com.
- Opting out does not remove advertising from the Site. It makes the advertising you see less relevant to you.
We do not give Google, or any advertiser, the name, email address or message content you send us through the contact form.
7. Analytics
We use Google Analytics 4 to understand how the Site is used: which articles are read, how readers find us, which pages load slowly and where people leave. We use it in aggregate. We do not use it to identify individual readers, and we have not enabled Google Signals or advertising features that would link analytics data to a Google account.
You can prevent Google Analytics from collecting your activity by declining analytics cookies in our banner, or by installing the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on.
8. Who we share your information with
We do not sell your personal information. We share it only as set out here.
| Who | Why |
|---|---|
| Our web hosting and infrastructure providers | To store and serve the Site. They act as operators under POPIA and process data on our instruction. |
| Google (Analytics and AdSense) | Audience measurement and advertising, as described in sections 6 and 7. |
| Our email provider | To receive and reply to your messages. |
| Kuala Publishing, our publisher | Shared editorial, technical and administrative functions across the group. |
| Professional advisers | Legal, accounting or insurance advice where genuinely needed. |
| Law enforcement, regulators or a court | Where we are legally required to disclose, or where disclosure is necessary to establish, exercise or defend a legal claim. |
| A buyer or successor | If the publication or its assets are sold or transferred, subject to the buyer honouring this policy. |
Where a service provider processes personal information for us, we require it under contract to process only on our instruction and to keep the information secure, as section 21 of POPIA requires.
9. Sending information outside South Africa
Some services we use, including Google Analytics and Google AdSense, are provided by companies that store and process data on servers outside South Africa. That means your information may be transferred across borders.
Section 72 of POPIA permits such transfers where the recipient is subject to a law, binding corporate rules or a binding agreement that provides an adequate level of protection comparable to POPIA. We rely on the contractual terms and data processing terms these providers publish, including Google’s, which impose such protections.
10. How long we keep your information
| What | How long |
|---|---|
| Contact form messages and email correspondence | 24 months from our last exchange with you, unless the matter is ongoing or we need it for a legal claim |
| Records of corrections and editorial complaints | 5 years, as part of our editorial accountability record |
| Analytics data | 14 months at event level, then retained only in aggregate reports that cannot identify you |
| Server and security logs | Up to 12 months |
| Advertising cookies | For the period set by Google, which varies by cookie. See our Cookie Policy. |
When information is no longer needed for the purpose it was collected for, we delete it or de-identify it so that it can no longer be linked to you.
11. How we protect your information
We take the security measures section 19 of POPIA requires, which include:
- encrypted connections (HTTPS) across the whole Site
- restricted access, so that only people who need the information for their work can reach it
- multi-factor authentication on the accounts that administer the Site
- kept-current software, plugins and server patches
- backups held securely
No website or email system is perfectly secure, and 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.
12. Your rights
Under POPIA you have the right to:
- Be told whether we hold personal information about you, and to receive a copy of it. This is a request for access under the Promotion of Access to Information Act 2 of 2000 (PAIA), and a prescribed fee may apply.
- Correct or delete information that is inaccurate, irrelevant, excessive, out of date, incomplete, misleading or obtained unlawfully.
- Object to processing we carry out on the ground of legitimate interests, on reasonable grounds relating to your situation.
- Object to direct marketing at any time.
- Withdraw consent you have given, including your cookie choices.
- Complain to us or to the Information Regulator.
- Not be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing that has legal consequences for you. We do not make such decisions.
How to exercise them
Email privacy@scoreline.co.za and tell us what you want. Formal requests use the Regulator’s prescribed forms: Form 1 to object to processing, Form 2 to request correction or deletion, and the PAIA request form for access. We will send you the correct form if you ask.
We may ask for enough information to confirm who you are, so that we do not disclose your information to somebody else. We respond within 30 days. If a request is complex and we need longer, we will tell you why before the 30 days are up.
Exercising these rights costs nothing, apart from the prescribed PAIA fee for access requests. Note that as a journalistic publication we may decline a request where granting it would compromise a confidential source, an unpublished investigation, or our right to publish material that is in the public interest.
13. Complaints to the Information Regulator
If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information or your request, please raise it with us first at privacy@scoreline.co.za so we have the chance to put it right. You can also complain directly to the Information Regulator:
| Information Regulator (South Africa) | Woodmead North Office Park, 54 Maxwell Drive, Woodmead, Johannesburg, 2191 |
|---|---|
| Telephone | 010 023 5200 or 0800 017 160 (toll free) |
| POPIA complaints | POPIAComplaints@inforegulator.org.za |
| PAIA complaints | PAIAComplaints@inforegulator.org.za |
| General enquiries | enquiries@inforegulator.org.za |
| Website | inforegulator.org.za |
14. Children
POPIA treats anyone under 18 as a child. ScoreLine is a general sports publication written for an adult readership, and it is not directed at children.
We do not knowingly collect personal information from a child without the consent of a competent person, as section 34 of POPIA requires. If you are under 18, please do not send us your personal information without a parent or guardian’s agreement. If you believe a child has given us personal information, email privacy@scoreline.co.za and we will delete it.
15. Readers outside South Africa
Our servers and our operations are in South Africa. If you read the Site from elsewhere, your information is transferred to and processed in South Africa.
If you are in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom, the General Data Protection Regulation may give you further rights, including data portability and the right to lodge a complaint with your local supervisory authority. We honour those rights for readers in those regions. Write to privacy@scoreline.co.za.
16. Links to other sites
Our articles link to official sports bodies, other publications and other sources. We check that a link is worth following, but we do not control those sites and we are not responsible for how they handle your information. Read their policies before you give them anything.
17. Changes to this policy
We update this policy when our practices, the services we use or the law changes. The effective date at the top tells you when the current version took effect, and material changes are announced on this page. Please check back from time to time.
| Version | Date | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2.1 | 9 September 2026 | Updated to reflect the activation of Google AdSense on ScoreLine. |
| 2.0 | 3 September 2026 | Rewritten for POPIA following the move to scoreline.co.za. Responsible party named, lawful grounds and retention periods stated, advertising and analytics practices described accurately, Regulator complaint route added. |
| 1.0 | 10 October 2024 | Original policy, published on the previous site. |
18. Contact us
Privacy, data requests and anything in this policy: privacy@scoreline.co.za
Everything else, including story tips, corrections and advertising: hello@scoreline.co.za
Postal and physical address: Boksburg, Gauteng, 1459