How UGCZA handles
your information

Effective [EFFECTIVE DATE]. This is the version of the notice currently in force. Earlier versions are available on request.

Who is responsible

UGCZA (Ultimate Gaming Championships South Africa) is run by [REGISTERED ENTITY NAME], registration number [REGISTRATION NUMBER]. POPIA calls us the responsible party for the personal information described here, which means we decide what is collected and why, and we answer for it.

• Address: 4 Bolton Rd, Parkwood, Johannesburg, 2192
• Email: info@themagicpixel.co.za
• Phone: +27 76 934 1288
• Information Officer: [INFORMATION OFFICER NAME], registered with the Information Regulator as POPIA requires

Anything in this notice, and any request under it, can go to that email address.

What we collect

Only what the site actually does, which is less than most sites do:

• What you type into the contact form - your name, your email address, your organisation if you give one, the topic you choose and your message. Organisation is optional. The rest we need in order to reply.
• A one-hour anti-abuse counter. When a message is accepted, your IP address is put through a one-way hash with a secret key held on the server and used as the name of a counter that expires after an hour. The address itself is never written down, the hash cannot be turned back into it, and none of it is attached to your message.
• Server logs kept by our host, [HOSTING PROVIDER], in the ordinary course of running a web server and the cache in front of it. These normally record IP addresses, times, and which pages were asked for.

That is the whole list. There is no analytics on this site, no newsletter and no sign-up form, no comment form, no advertising and no tracking pixel. We do not buy information about you, and we do not build a profile of you.

Entering a tournament happens on start.gg, not here. Your entry, your tag, your seed and your results are held by start.gg under its own privacy policy and its own account terms. This site reads published bracket data back from start.gg and displays it; it never sends start.gg anything about you.

Why we collect it

POPIA requires a lawful basis for each purpose, so here is each purpose with its basis:

• To read your message and reply to it - your consent, which is what the tick box on the form is for, and where you are asking about work we might do together, because it is a step towards a contract at your request.
• To keep a record of what was asked and what we answered - our legitimate interest in being able to look up a conversation months later.
• To stop the form being used for automated abuse - our legitimate interest in keeping the site usable.
• To keep the site running and secure - our legitimate interest, and our host’s.

We do not use your details for marketing. If that ever changes we will ask you in writing first, because POPIA section 69 requires consent for unsolicited electronic marketing and the 2025 regulations are explicit that an opt-out afterwards is not consent.

Who else sees it

What you send us is seen by the people at UGCZA who deal with it, and by two suppliers who carry it:

• [HOSTING PROVIDER], which stores the site, its database and its backups, and keeps the server logs.
• The mail provider that carries the notification message from the site to us.

Both are operators under POPIA, which means they act on our instructions and may not use what they hold for their own purposes. We do not sell personal information and we do not share it for anybody else’s marketing. We would hand something over to a court or a regulator if we were legally obliged to, and we would tell you unless we were forbidden to.

Other companies appear on this site without receiving anything about you, unless you act. This is deliberate and it is worth being precise about:

• Video. The showreel and the portfolio clips are not live embeds. What loads is a still image held on this site, and nothing at all is requested from YouTube until you press play. When you do, the player comes from youtube-nocookie.com and YouTube receives that request.
• Links. Discord, Instagram, Twitch, YouTube, X, start.gg and the press sites we link to are ordinary links. Nothing is handed over until you follow one, and then you are on their site under their rules.
• Tournament data. This site’s server fetches brackets and standings from start.gg on a schedule and stores the answer. Your browser never contacts start.gg.

Outside South Africa. Our host stores the site and its backups on servers in [HOST SERVER COUNTRY]. Where personal information leaves the country, POPIA section 72 allows it only on specific grounds - the one we rely on is that the supplier is bound by an agreement that upholds protection substantially similar to POPIA’s.

How long we keep it

A period per category, rather than “as long as necessary”:

• Contact form messages - twelve months from our last exchange with you, then deleted. If the conversation became a contract, the records that belong to that contract are kept with it instead.
• The anti-abuse counter - one hour, then it expires by itself.
• Server logs - [HOST LOG RETENTION], which is our host’s period rather than ours.
• Anything that became a business record - five years, which is what South African tax and company law requires.

Children

POPIA treats anyone under 18 as a child, and sections 34 and 35 prohibit processing a child’s personal information without the prior consent of a competent person - in practice a parent or guardian.

This site is not aimed at children and the contact form should not be used by anyone under 18 unless a parent or guardian is doing it with them. If we find we are holding a child’s information without that consent, we delete it.

Events are a different matter, because we film them. An entrant under 18 needs a parent or guardian’s written consent before entering and before being filmed, and the terms of use set out what that consent covers.

How we keep it safe

The site is served over HTTPS. The contact form is protected against cross-site posting and against automated submission. Messages are stored in the site’s own database and reachable only by the few people who administer the site, each with their own account. Backups are held by our host.

No system is perfectly safe. If personal information is accessed by somebody who should not have it, POPIA section 22 requires us to notify the Information Regulator and the people affected, and we will do that as soon as we reasonably can after establishing what actually happened.

Your rights

Under POPIA you may:

• ask whether we hold personal information about you, and ask for a copy of it. This is a request under PAIA, and our PAIA manual says how to make one.
• ask us to correct or delete information that is wrong, misleading, out of date, incomplete, excessive, or held without a good reason.
• object to us processing your information.
• withdraw consent you have given, at any time, without that affecting anything done lawfully before you withdrew it.
• complain to the Information Regulator.

Write to info@themagicpixel.co.za or to the postal address above. There is no charge for objecting or for asking us to correct or delete something, and we will respond in writing within 30 days. The POPIA regulations have prescribed forms for objection and for correction or deletion; we will accept a plain email just as readily, and we will send you the form if you would rather use it.

Cookies

This site sets no cookies at all on an ordinary visit. The two exceptions - signing in to administer the site, and pressing play on a video - are set out in the cookie notice.

Complaints

Tell us first if you can, at info@themagicpixel.co.za - most things are quicker to fix than to complain about. If we cannot put it right, you can take it to the Information Regulator, who has 14 days to acknowledge a complaint:

• Information Regulator (South Africa), Woodmead North Office Park, 54 Maxwell Drive, Woodmead, Johannesburg, 2191
• Telephone 010 023 5200, toll free 0800 017 160
• Complaints: POPIAComplaints@inforegulator.org.za
• General enquiries: enquiries@inforegulator.org.za

Changes to this notice

We update this notice when the site changes or the law does. The date at the top is the version in force. If a change materially affects what we do with your information, we will say so on the site rather than change the date quietly.