Privacy notice (DRAFT)
Status: draft for the owner and a qualified lawyer. Not legal advice and not yet published. Fill every [BRACKET] first. Basis: research/briefs/2026-10-12-popia-processing-and-notice.md (POPIA s18 list).
Last updated: [date]
Who we are
Paperiser is run by Paperiser (Pty) Ltd, registration number 2026/814779/07, 164 Voortrekker Road, Maitland, Cape Town, Western Cape, 7405. You can reach us at privacy@paperiser.co.za. Our Information Officer is Sicelamandla Zikhali, who can be reached at the same address.
What this service does
You upload bank statement PDFs, and if you like invoices, receipts and supplier statements. We read them, check every balance and total against the document itself, suggest which payment each invoice or receipt belongs to, and give you a spreadsheet or CSV. You confirm or change every suggestion. Paperiser (Pty) Ltd is not connected to any bank.
What we receive and why
| What | Why | Do we keep it? |
|---|---|---|
| The PDFs you upload, and what is in them: for a bank statement the transactions (dates, descriptions, amounts, balances), account number and holder name; for an invoice, receipt or supplier statement the supplier, invoice number, dates, amounts, tax and the customer name and address printed on it; and the names of people and businesses you paid or were paid by | To read the document, check it, suggest which payment it belongs to and build your download | No. It is held in memory only while the request runs, then discarded. We never write it to disk, a database or a log |
| The PDF's password, if it has one | To open the file | No. Used for that request and discarded |
| Your choices: the categories you set and which payment you say a document belongs to | To label your transactions and build the matched workbook | Not by us. They stay in your browser. If you tick "Remember my rules in this browser" they are stored in your browser's local storage on your device, and you can clear them there |
| Your internet address (IP) | To limit how fast one person can send requests, and to tie the short-lived captcha pass to you | Held in memory for about a minute for the rate limit; the pass is a signed token valid for 30 minutes and is not stored |
| If you sign in: your email address, and an internal user number our sign-in provider (Google Firebase Authentication) gives you | To send you the sign-in link, recognise you on your next visit and keep your credits with you | Yes, for as long as your account exists. Statements, documents and choices are still not kept |
| If you sign in: one sign-in cookie in your browser | To keep you signed in. It is strictly necessary for signing in, it is read only by our server (the browser's scripts cannot see it), and it lasts up to 30 days after your last visit and never more than 90 days | It lives in your browser; we keep nothing for it on our side. Signing out removes it |
| If you buy credits: the pack you chose, the amount, the date, our reference and the payment provider's reference, tied to your account | To add the credits you paid for, show your balance, and keep the financial records the law requires | Yes. We expect tax law to require records for five years [Lawyer to confirm], so these are kept even if you close your account; your email can be removed from them |
| Your card or bank details | Taking payment | Never by us. You enter them on the payment provider's own page (Paystack); they do not reach our servers |
| Basic request records (time, page, size, result, browser type) | Keeping the service running | Our hosting provider keeps these for 30 days. They contain no statement content, file names or passwords. Because traffic arrives through Cloudflare, the address they record is Cloudflare's, not yours |
Supplying a document is voluntary. Without it we cannot produce your spreadsheet. Signing in is optional. Without it, our pages set no cookies. With it, the one sign-in cookie described above is the only cookie we set. We run no advertising, analytics or tracking tools. (We checked the signed-out page in a fresh browser on 12 October 2026, including while the security check ran. [Owner: re-check before launch and after any change, signed in and signed out.])
Other people's information
Statements, invoices and receipts contain information about other people (anyone you paid or who paid you, and the people named on an invoice). We process it only to build your spreadsheet. Please upload only documents you are entitled to use. If you upload someone else's documents for them, tell them and get their permission.
Where it goes
- Hosting: Google Cloud Run in Johannesburg, South Africa, where your statement is processed.
- Network and security: the website runs through Cloudflare, which carries your traffic (including the uploaded file) over its network and runs the security check (Turnstile). The check runs in a frame on our page, and Cloudflare may collect technical details such as your browser type for it; see Cloudflare's own notice. Cloudflare may handle traffic in data centres outside South Africa. [Lawyer to confirm how this is described and whether consent or an agreement is needed.]
- Sign-in: Google Firebase Authentication emails you the sign-in link and checks it. Your browser contacts Google's sign-in service when you ask for the link. Google may handle this data in data centres outside South Africa. [Lawyer to confirm.]
- Account data and credits: stored in Google Cloud Firestore in Johannesburg, South Africa.
- Payments: if you buy credits, Paystack takes your payment on its own page and tells us it succeeded. Paystack may handle your details outside South Africa and has its own notice. [Lawyer to confirm.]
- We do not sell your information, share it for marketing, or use it to train any model.
How we keep it safe
Files are processed in memory, the connection is encrypted (HTTPS), the sign-in cookie cannot be read by the page's scripts, the database refuses access from browsers, payment notices are accepted only if cryptographically signed by the payment provider, the service accepts requests only through our own website front end, uploads and request rates are limited, and we log no statement content. If we have reasonable grounds to believe someone unauthorised accessed personal information, we will tell the Information Regulator and, where we can identify you, you, as soon as reasonably possible.
Your rights
You may ask whether we hold information about you, ask us to correct or delete it, and object to its processing. Because we keep no statements, we normally hold nothing about them. If you have an account we hold your email address and credit records: write to privacy@paperiser.co.za to see them, correct them, or close your account. We will delete what the law lets us delete, and keep only the payment records we must. You may also complain to the Information Regulator:
- Website: https://inforegulator.org.za (complaints: https://inforegulator.org.za/complaints/)
- Email: enquiries@inforegulator.org.za
- Phone: 010 023 5200
- Address: Woodmead North Office Park, 54 Maxwell Drive, Woodmead, Johannesburg, 2191
Children
Paperiser is not intended for anyone under 18.
Changes
We will post changes here and update the date above, and we will update this notice before we start keeping anything new. We have not yet decided to store your statements or documents; if we ever offer that, it will be optional and described here first.