Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

themv.shop is the theme marketplace and website builder of THEMV (Pty) Ltd (Reg. No. K2024858541), a South African company at 6690 Zone 6, Mokale Street, Ga-Rankuwa, 0208. We are the responsible party (as defined in POPIA) for the personal information we process when you use our platform.

2. What we collect

Account data — name, email address, organisation name, and password (stored as a bcrypt hash).
Site data — content you add to websites you build, including form fields submitted through your sites.
Customer data — when a customer buys from a storefront: name, email, phone, delivery address, order details.
Payment data — payment is processed by Yoco; we do not store card numbers.
AI data — prompts you send to AI features, and any third-party AI keys you save (stored encrypted, never shown again).
Technical data — IP address, browser type, pages visited, and cookies, for security and analytics.

3. How we use it

To create and manage your account and the sites you build.
To process payments, payouts and orders.
To send transactional emails (order confirmations, review requests, support).
To keep the platform secure and prevent fraud or abuse.
To provide AI features (section drafts, copy, palettes) when your plan includes them.
To improve our service and, where you have consented, to send marketing.

4. Legal basis for processing

Consent — where you tick a consent box (e.g. marketing).
Contract — to deliver the service you asked for.
Legal obligation — tax and record-keeping requirements.
Legitimate interest — security, fraud prevention and platform improvement.

Yoco — payment processing (South Africa).
Resend — transactional email delivery.
Cloudflare — content delivery and DNS.
Google Fonts — fonts on our pages (your IP address is sent to Google).
AI providers — Google Gemini, Groq and OpenRouter process AI prompts you submit (subject to change; listed in the dashboard AI tab).

We never sell your personal information. We store only metadata about AI use (feature, provider, date) — not your prompt text.

6. Cross-border transfers

Some of our service providers (Resend, Cloudflare, Google — including AI prompt processing by Gemini, Groq and OpenRouter) operate outside South Africa. Where personal information is transferred across borders, we rely on providers that apply safeguards substantially similar to POPIA.

7. Cookies

We use essential cookies for authentication (login sessions). Third-party services we integrate with may set their own cookies. Non-essential cookies will only be set with your consent.

8. How we protect it

We use industry-standard safeguards, including HTTPS encryption, hashed passwords, encrypted API keys, HttpOnly cookies, and access controls. While no system is perfectly secure, we work to protect your information against loss, misuse, and unauthorised access.

9. Your rights

Under POPIA you have the right to:

Access the personal information we hold about you.
Correct inaccurate information.
Delete your account and personal data.
Object to the processing of your information in certain circumstances.
Withdraw consent at any time, with the same ease as it was given.

You may also request your data in a portable, machine-readable format. We respond to all requests within 30 days.

10. Retention

We keep personal information only as long as necessary for the purposes described here, or as required by law (for example, transaction records are kept for at least 5 years for tax purposes).

11. Children

Our platform is intended for users aged 18 and older. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 18. If you believe a child has provided us with personal information, contact us and we will delete it.

12. Contact & complaints

Our Information Officer is Thabang Llale. Questions or requests about this policy can be sent to privacy@themv.co.za, or by post to THEMV (Pty) Ltd, 6690 Zone 6, Mokale Street, Ga-Rankuwa, 0208, South Africa. If you are not satisfied with our response, you may lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator (South Africa) at www.justice.gov.za/inforeg.