POPI Act Compliance Notice

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Prajna Institute of Alternative Healing
Effective Date: March 2025  |  Last Updated: March 2025

1. Introduction

This POPI Act Compliance Notice explains how Prajna Institute of Alternative Healing (also known as The Prajna Institute of Alternative Healing) collects, uses, stores, and protects your personal information, in accordance with the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (POPI Act) of South Africa.

By using our website at www.prajnainstitute.co.za, enrolling in our programmes, or contacting us in any way, you acknowledge that your personal information will be processed in accordance with this notice and the applicable provisions of the POPI Act.

Where visitors or students are located within the European Union, the more stringent requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) also apply.

2. Who We Are

Prajna Institute of Alternative Healing is an alternative healing academy located in Gauteng, South Africa. We are the first academy in South Africa to offer internationally accredited degree programmes in alternative healing, through our flagship curriculum: Alternative Complementary Healing Energy (A.C.H.E.) — available at Bachelor, Master, and Doctorate level.

We are affiliated with the Manjushri Healing Center, a holistic healing practice. Our programmes are accredited by the International Association of Organisations (IAO).

3. Responsible Party (Information Officer)

In terms of the POPI Act, the Responsible Party — the entity that determines the purpose of and means for processing your personal information — is:

All requests relating to your personal information, including access, correction, or deletion requests, should be directed to the Information Officer at the contact details above.

4. Personal Information We Collect

4.1 Information You Provide Directly

  • Full name, email address, and telephone number (submitted via contact forms)
  • Date of birth, identity document number, and academic history (submitted via enrolment forms)
  • Payment information — processed securely by our payment processor; we do not store card or banking details directly
  • Content of email communications and WhatsApp messages sent to us

4.2 Information Collected Automatically

  • IP address, browser type and version, operating system, referring URL, pages visited, and date/time of visit
  • Behavioural signals used for anti-bot and security verification (via Cloudflare Turnstile and Google reCAPTCHA)

5. Purposes and Legal Basis for Processing

We only collect and process personal information for specific, explicitly defined, and lawful purposes. The table below sets out our processing activities and the legal basis for each:

We do not sell, rent, or share your personal information with third parties for their marketing purposes.

6. Data Retention

  • We do not archive personal information on our own servers beyond what is strictly necessary for the stated purpose.
  • Financial and transactional data is retained for 5 years, as required by South African tax legislation.
  • All other personal data is retained only for as long as necessary to fulfil the purpose for which it was collected, after which it is securely deleted or anonymised.
  • All data transmission is protected via HTTPS / TLS encryption.
  • Access to personal data is strictly limited to authorised personnel only.

7. Third-Party Service Providers

We use the following third-party services on our website. Each provider processes data under its own privacy policy and is contractually required to handle your information securely:

Please note: Google Analytics and Google Ads are disabled by default and are only activated upon your explicit consent via the cookie consent banner.

8. Cookies

Our website uses cookies — small text files stored on your device. The following categories of cookies may be used:

  • Your consent preferences are stored via cookie with a 30-day expiry.
  • Non-essential cookies are denied by default. They are only activated if you give explicit consent via our cookie banner.
  • You may change or withdraw your cookie preferences at any time via the cookie banner or your browser settings.

For full details on the cookies we use, please refer to our Cookie Policy.

9. International Transfers of Personal Information

Some of our third-party service providers — including Google LLC and Cloudflare, Inc. — are located outside of South Africa. Any transfer of your personal information to a foreign country is conducted in compliance with Section 72 of the POPI Act, using standard contractual clauses or equivalent safeguards to ensure that your data receives an adequate level of protection.

10. Your Rights as a Data Subject

In terms of the POPI Act, you have the following rights in respect of your personal information:

We will respond to all requests within 30 days of receipt. To exercise any of the above rights, please contact us at:

11. The Information Regulator of South Africa

If you are not satisfied with how we have handled your personal information, or if you believe your rights under the POPI Act have been infringed, you have the right to lodge a complaint directly with the Information Regulator of South Africa:

12. Minors and Third-Party Websites

Our services and programmes are intended exclusively for persons who are 18 years of age or older. We do not knowingly collect personal information from minors. If we become aware that a minor has submitted personal information to us, we will delete it promptly.

Our website may contain links to third-party websites. This POPI Act Compliance Notice applies solely to the domain www.prajnainstitute.co.za. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of any third-party sites.

13. Updates to This Notice

We may update this POPI Act Compliance Notice from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, legal requirements, or services. When we do, we will update the “Last Updated” date at the top of this page. We encourage you to review this notice periodically.

14. Contact Us

If you have any questions, concerns, or requests relating to your personal information or this notice, please contact us:

Prajna Institute of Alternative Healing
General enquiries: info@prajnainstitute.co.za
Data / privacy requests: admin@manjushrihealing.com
Phone / WhatsApp: +27 83 388 7969
Website: www.prajnainstitute.co.za

This notice was prepared in accordance with the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (POPI Act) and is effective from March 2025.