Your Privacy Matters to Us

Last updated: 6 November 2026

Who We Are

The ME Collective is a family of property businesses: Property ME, Bond ME, Mortgage Express, Subsidy ME, Reassure ME and Reward ME. In this policy, "we" and "us" means The ME Collective and these businesses.

What We Collect

We only collect what we need to help you. This may include:

• your name, phone number and email address;
• what you need help with and any message you send us;
• for a Passport to Purchase or home loan: details about your income, debts and credit record, with your permission;
• basic technical details your browser sends when you visit this site.

We may also obtain contact details from licensed property data providers and public sources. If we do, we will contact you no more than once to ask whether you'd like to hear from us, and we stop if you say no.

Why We Use It

We use your information to answer your enquiry, give you the service you asked for, keep you updated, and meet our legal duties. We do not sell your personal information.

Who We Share It With

We share your information only when we need to, to help you. For example, between the businesses in the Collective that are helping you, or with banks and insurers when you ask us to apply or get quotes for you. We expect everyone we share with to protect your information too.

Your Consent

When you send us an enquiry or chat to Buddy, you agree that we may contact you about it. You can withdraw your consent at any time by telling us.

How We Keep It Safe

We use sensible technical and practical steps to keep your information safe, and we only keep it for as long as we need it or the law requires.

Where Your Documents Are Stored

We store the documents you send us with a reputable cloud storage provider. They are currently kept in the European Union, where the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) protects them to a standard at least equal to POPIA. Your documents are encrypted, only authorised staff can open them, and every access is recorded. We may move this storage to South Africa in future, and your protection stays the same.

We only send personal information outside South Africa as section 72 of POPIA allows. We remain responsible for your information wherever it is stored.

Use of AI Services

To answer you faster, we sometimes use a trusted external AI service to help read messages and documents. Before anything is sent, we mask personal details such as names, ID numbers, phone numbers and account numbers wherever technically possible. Some documents can't be masked, such as photos, scans and completed application forms. Those are read only for the information needed for your application, and we ask the provider to delete them as soon as they've been read. ID documents and credit reports are only checked to confirm what they are, never read for their details. The provider may not use your information to train its models. If you'd rather we didn't use AI on your information, reply PRIVATE to Buddy or tell your consultant, and a person will handle it instead, which may take a little longer.

Your Rights

You may ask to see the information we hold about you, ask us to correct or delete it, or object to how we use it. If you are unhappy with how we handle your information, please tell us first. You may also complain to the Information Regulator.

Cookies

This site does not use tracking or advertising cookies. Our fonts load from Google Fonts, which means your browser connects to Google when you open a page.

Connecting Your Google Account to the ME Gateway

Gateway users can choose to connect their Google account. It's optional, and it's only for our team and partners who use the Gateway, not for clients. We only ask for the Google permissions needed for the options you choose.

What the Gateway reads. Your main Google Calendar, so your events show in your Gateway calendar, and your Google Contacts, so they show in your Gateway Phonebook. These are read live from Google each time you open the page. They are not saved, logged or kept by the Gateway. The Gateway never asks for or reads your email.

What the Gateway writes. Only what you choose. The Gateway can create a separate "ME Gateway" calendar in your Google account and add Gateway events to it, such as tickets, birthdays and expiry dates, with a Google Meet link if you tick "Add Google Meet". Your own Gateway tasks can go to an "ME Gateway" Google task list. It can also save Phonebook contacts to Google Contacts under an "ME Gateway" label. You can save a new number or calendar entry to "My Google only": it goes straight to your Google account and the Gateway keeps nothing about it. The Gateway only changes or removes items it added itself.

Two-way sync. If you turn on two-way sync, an event you add to your "ME Gateway" Google calendar becomes your own event in the Gateway. Gateway tasks you tick done in Google come back as done in the Gateway. The Gateway never touches tasks you add yourself. Apart from these and the Meet links it creates, the Gateway keeps no Google content.

What we keep. Your Google account email (shown as "Connected as"), the permissions you granted and your sync choices, an encrypted connection key, and reference IDs and change markers for the events, contacts and tasks the Gateway created. We never sell your Google data, use it for advertising, or share it with anyone else. Our staff don't read it unless you ask us to help with a problem.

Disconnecting. Click Disconnect on My profile › My Google, or remove "ME Gateway" at myaccount.google.com/permissions. Disconnecting in the Gateway cancels our access at Google and deletes the key, the reference IDs and your sync choices. The "ME Gateway" calendar, task list and contact label stay in your Google account until you delete them.

The ME Gateway's use and transfer to any other app of information received from Google APIs will adhere to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.

Contact Our Information Officer

To ask about your information, please contact us or chat to Buddy.

Our Information Officer is Dewald van Wyk. You can email compliance@themecollective.africa.

Limitation of Liability

We take reasonable technical and organisational steps to protect your information, as POPIA requires. As far as the law allows, we are not liable for loss or damage caused by events beyond our reasonable control. These include failures or breaches at third-party service providers, internet or network outages, and unauthorised access we could not reasonably have prevented. If your information is compromised, we will tell you and the Information Regulator as POPIA requires. Nothing in this notice takes away rights you have under POPIA or the Consumer Protection Act that the law does not allow us to exclude.

Changes to This Notice

We update this notice as our systems and services change. The latest version is always on this page, with the date it was last updated.