Last updated: September 2026
1. Who we are
This website, https://towerworld.com (the “Site”), is owned and operated by [Turrim Brands (Pty) Ltd] trading as TOWER (“TOWER”, “we”, “us” or “our”), a company incorporated in the Republic of South Africa.
TOWER is the “responsible party” for the purposes of the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (“POPIA”). This means we decide why and how your personal information is processed when you use the Site.
Contact details
- Physical address: 71 Capricorn Boulevard, Capricorn Business Park, Muizenberg, 7945, Cape Town, South Africa
- Postal address: 71 Capricorn Boulevard, Capricorn Business Park, Muizenberg, 7945, Cape Town, South Africa
- Telephone: 021 207 3944
- Toll-free helpline: 0800 220 488 (South Africa only)
- Email: sales@turrimgroup.com
- Information Officer: Nastassja Lambert, nlambert@turrimgroup.com
Our Information Officer is registered with the Information Regulator and is responsible for ensuring that we comply with POPIA. You may contact them directly with any privacy-related question or request.
2. What this policy covers
This policy explains what personal information we collect when you visit the Site, create an account, place an order, subscribe to our newsletter or contact us; why we collect it; who we share it with; how long we keep it; how we protect it; and the rights you have under POPIA.
This policy applies to towerworld.com only. Our sister site, TOWER Prints (https://towerworldprints.com), and the Sandart website (https://www.sandart.co.za) have their own policies. Third-party websites we link to, including online retailers who stock our products and our social media pages, are governed by their own privacy terms.
By using the Site you acknowledge that you have read this policy. Where the law requires your consent for a particular type of processing (for example, marketing cookies or our newsletter), we will ask for it separately and you may withdraw it at any time.
3. Personal information we collect
3.1 Information you give us directly
| When you… | We collect… |
|---|---|
| Create a customer account | Your name, email address, chosen password (stored in encrypted form), and any billing and shipping addresses you save |
| Place an order | Your name, email address, telephone number, billing address, delivery address, order contents, and the information needed to process payment (see section 3.4) |
| Subscribe to our newsletter | Your first name, last name, email address, whether you are a reseller or consumer, your occupation, and the product areas you are interested in (home, business, school, signage) |
| Contact us | Your name, contact details, and the content of your message, including any photographs you send us in support of a return or complaint |
| Request a return or refund | Your order number, reason for return, and photographs of any damaged or defective item |
| Leave a product review or comment | Your display name, email address and the content of your review |
We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of 18 without the consent of a parent or guardian. Although our school range is designed for use by teachers and parents, our Site is intended for adults. If you believe a child has provided us with personal information, please contact our Information Officer and we will delete it.
3.2 Information we collect automatically
When you browse the Site, our servers and the cookies and similar technologies described in our Cookie Policy may collect:
- your IP address and approximate location (country or city level);
- your device type, operating system and browser;
- the pages you visit, the products you view and add to your basket, and how you arrived at the Site (for example, from a search engine, social media post or email);
- the date, time and duration of your visit.
Statistics and marketing cookies are only set after you have given consent through the cookie banner. Functional cookies that are strictly necessary for the Site to work (for example, remembering the contents of your shopping basket or keeping you logged in) do not require consent.
3.3 Information from third parties
If you interact with us on Facebook, Instagram, X, YouTube or Pinterest, we may receive information from those platforms in accordance with their terms and your privacy settings on those platforms. If you buy our products from one of our online retailers rather than from this Site, that retailer — not TOWER — holds your purchase information.
3.4 Payment information
Payments on the Site are processed by our third-party payment gateway, [PayFast / Yoco / Peach Payments — confirm]. Your card number and security code are entered directly on the gateway’s secure page and are never stored on our servers. We receive confirmation of payment, the payment method used, and the last four digits of the card where the gateway provides them.
4. Why we process your information and on what basis
POPIA requires us to have a lawful basis for every processing activity. We rely on the following:
| Purpose | Lawful basis |
|---|---|
| Creating and managing your account | Performance of a contract with you |
| Processing and delivering your order, and sending order confirmations, invoices and delivery updates | Performance of a contract with you |
| Handling returns, refunds, warranty claims and complaints | Performance of a contract; compliance with the Consumer Protection Act |
| Responding to your enquiries | Our legitimate interest in providing customer service, or performance of a contract |
| Sending our newsletter and marketing emails | Your consent (which you can withdraw at any time via the unsubscribe link) |
| Sending marketing to existing customers about similar products | Section 69 of POPIA, which permits this where you were given the opportunity to object at the time your details were collected and in every message thereafter |
| Keeping accounting, tax and transaction records | Legal obligation (including the Companies Act, Tax Administration Act and Value-Added Tax Act) |
| Detecting and preventing fraud, abuse and security incidents | Our legitimate interest in protecting the Site and our customers |
| Measuring Site performance and understanding how visitors use it | Your consent (statistics cookies) |
| Showing you relevant advertising on social media and other sites | Your consent (marketing cookies) |
| Improving our products and services and understanding our customer base | Our legitimate interest, using aggregated or de-identified information wherever possible |
Where we rely on legitimate interest, we have considered whether that interest is outweighed by your rights and interests and concluded that it is not. You may object to any processing based on legitimate interest by contacting our Information Officer.
5. Who we share your information with
We do not sell your personal information. We share it only with:
Service providers (operators) who process information on our behalf and under our instructions, including:
- our website hosting provider, Cloudways;
- our payment gateway, PayFast;
- our courier and delivery partners, Scrubbill, who receive your name, delivery address and telephone number so that they can deliver your order;
- our email and newsletter platform, Mailchimp;
- Google (Google Analytics and related Site Kit services) for site measurement;
- Meta Platforms (Facebook Pixel) for advertising measurement and audience building, where you have consented to marketing cookies;
- Subculture Creative Studio, our web development and digital agency, who may access Site data in the course of maintaining and supporting the Site.
Each operator is bound by a written agreement requiring them to keep your information confidential and secure, and to process it only for the purposes we specify.
Companies in our group, including the entities behind TOWER Prints and Sandart, for internal administration and, where you have consented, for marketing.
Professional advisers, such as our auditors, accountants, attorneys and insurers, where necessary.
Public authorities, where we are required to do so by law, court order or a lawful request from a regulator or law enforcement.
A buyer or successor in the event that TOWER or its assets are sold, merged or restructured, in which case your information will remain subject to this policy or one no less protective.
6. Transfers outside South Africa
Some of our service providers, including Google, Meta and [email platform], store or process information on servers located outside South Africa, including in the United States and the European Union. Section 72 of POPIA permits such transfers where the recipient is bound by a law, binding corporate rules or a contract that provides substantially similar protection to POPIA, or where the transfer is necessary to perform our contract with you. We rely on these safeguards, including standard contractual terms, for all cross-border transfers.
7. How long we keep your information
We keep personal information only for as long as necessary for the purpose it was collected, after which it is deleted or de-identified. As a guide:
| Information | Retention period |
|---|---|
| Order and transaction records, including invoices | 5 years from the end of the tax year in which the transaction took place, as required by the Tax Administration Act |
| Customer account information | For as long as your account is active. Accounts inactive for [3] years are deleted after we have notified you |
| Newsletter subscription details | Until you unsubscribe or ask us to remove you, after which your email address is kept on a suppression list only to ensure we honour your request |
| Customer service correspondence | [3] years from the date the matter is closed |
| Return, warranty and complaint records | 3 years from the date the matter is closed, in line with the Consumer Protection Act’s limitation periods |
| Website analytics data | As set out in our Cookie Policy (typically 14 to 26 months) |
| Server logs | [90] days |
We may keep information for longer where required by law, where it is needed for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims, or where you have consented.
8. How we protect your information
We take reasonable technical and organisational measures to secure your personal information against loss, unauthorised access, alteration or disclosure, including:
- encryption of data in transit using TLS (HTTPS) across the entire Site;
- password hashing for customer accounts;
- outsourcing card payments to a PCI DSS-compliant payment gateway so that card details never touch our systems;
- access controls that limit staff and contractor access to information on a need-to-know basis;
- regular software updates and security monitoring of the Site;
- written data-processing agreements with all operators.
No system is completely secure. If we become aware of a security compromise that affects your personal information, we will notify you and the Information Regulator as required by section 22 of POPIA, as soon as reasonably possible after discovering it.
9. Your rights under POPIA
You have the right to:
- be notified that your personal information is being collected, which this policy does;
- access your personal information and be told what we hold about you and who we have shared it with. We may charge a prescribed fee where the law allows;
- correct or update information that is inaccurate, incomplete or out of date. You can update most account details yourself under Your Account;
- delete or destroy your information where we no longer need it or are not permitted to keep it;
- object to processing based on our legitimate interests, and to direct marketing at any time;
- withdraw consent where processing is based on consent, without affecting the lawfulness of processing before withdrawal;
- not be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing that has legal or similarly significant effects on you. We do not currently make such decisions;
- complain to the Information Regulator if you believe we have infringed your rights.
To exercise any of these rights, contact our Information Officer using the details in section 1. We may need to verify your identity before acting on a request. We aim to respond within 30 days.
You can also lodge a complaint with:
The Information Regulator (South Africa) JD House, 27 Stiemens Street, Braamfontein, Johannesburg, 2001 Email: complaints.IR@inforegulator.org.za Website: https://inforegulator.org.za
10. Marketing communications
If you subscribe to our newsletter or opt in at checkout, we will send you tips, product news and offers by email. Every message includes an unsubscribe link, and you can also unsubscribe by emailing sales@turrimgroup.com. We will act on your request promptly, though you may receive one or two messages that were already scheduled.
We do not send marketing by SMS or make marketing telephone calls unless you have specifically asked us to.
Where you have consented to marketing cookies, we may use the Facebook Pixel and similar tools to show you TOWER advertising on social media and other websites, and to measure how effective that advertising is. You can withdraw this consent at any time by changing your cookie preferences via the “Manage Cookie Consent” link in the Site footer.
11. Cookies
Our use of cookies and similar technologies, the specific cookies set, their purposes and lifespans, and how to manage them are described in our separate Cookie Policy, which forms part of this Privacy Policy.
12. Links to other websites
The Site contains links to our online retailers, social media channels, our sister sites and other third-party websites. We are not responsible for the privacy practices or content of those sites. We encourage you to read the privacy policy of any site you visit.
13. Changes to this policy
We may update this policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices or the law. The “Last updated” date at the top of this page shows when it was last revised. Where a change is material, we will notify registered customers and newsletter subscribers by email or by a notice on the Site before it takes effect. Your continued use of the Site after that date constitutes acceptance of the revised policy.
14. Access to information (PAIA)
TOWER’s manual under the Promotion of Access to Information Act 2 of 2000, which describes the records we hold and how to request access to them, is available on request from our Information Officer.
Questions about this policy or how we handle your information? Email sales@turrimgroup.com or call 021 207 3944.