Tech Sight (Pty) Ltd, a private company registered in South Africa, registration 2020/007761/07. Prepared in terms of section 51 of the Promotion of Access to Information Act 2 of 2000, as amended. Date of compilation: 14 September 2026. Date of last revision: 14 September 2026.
This manual is useful for the public to:
No separate Deputy Information Officer has been designated under section 17(1) of PAIA read with section 56 of POPIA. Frans Vermaak, the Information Officer, performs the functions of both, and is reached as set out in 3.1.
4.1 The Regulator has, in terms of section 10(1) of PAIA, as amended, updated and made available the revised Guide on how to use PAIA (the Guide), in an easily comprehensible form and manner, as may reasonably be required by a person who wishes to exercise any right contemplated in PAIA and POPIA.
4.2 The Guide is available in each of the official languages and in braille.
4.3 The Guide contains the description of:
4.4 Members of the public can inspect or make copies of the Guide from the offices of public and private bodies, including the office of the Regulator, during normal working hours.
4.5 The Guide can also be obtained on request to the Information Officer, or from the website of the Regulator at inforegulator.org.za.
4.6 A copy of the Guide is also available from Tech Sight in the following two official languages, for public inspection during normal office hours: English and Afrikaans.
These records are published on techsight.co.za and can be read or downloaded there. Anyone may also ask for them by email. No form, proof of identity or fee applies to them; section 9 concerns records that are not in this list. Tech Sight has not published a separate notice under section 52(1) of PAIA, which is voluntary; this section is the description of those records.
| Category of records | Types of record | On the website | On request |
|---|---|---|---|
| Company identity | Registered name, registration number, contact details | Yes | Yes |
| Services | Descriptions of the AI governance, AI audit, AI architecture and AI training services, and of the TAG and TechSight 90 methods | Yes | Yes |
| Products | Descriptions of LinguistPro and of the Fynbos platform; the withdrawal notice for the TechSight Data Feeds plans | Yes | Yes |
| Published writing | Articles and the daily AI Brief, each dated, with the AI Brief labelled as machine-generated | Yes | Yes |
| Legal notices | Privacy policy, terms of use, refunds, the archived Data Feeds subscription terms | Yes | Yes |
| This manual | PAIA manual | Yes | Yes |
| Category of records | Applicable legislation |
|---|---|
| Memorandum of incorporation, registers, minutes and resolutions, annual returns | Companies Act 71 of 2008 |
| Accounting records and financial statements | Companies Act 71 of 2008 |
| Tax returns, assessments and supporting records | Tax Administration Act 28 of 2011; Income Tax Act 58 of 1962; Value-Added Tax Act 89 of 1991 where applicable |
| Employment and contractor records | Basic Conditions of Employment Act 75 of 1997; Labour Relations Act 66 of 1995; Unemployment Insurance Act 63 of 2001; Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act 130 of 1993, each where applicable |
| Records of electronic transactions with consumers | Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002; Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008 |
| Records of the processing of personal information, including this manual and the privacy policy | Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013; Promotion of Access to Information Act 2 of 2000 |
| Subject | Categories of records |
|---|---|
| Company and governance | Incorporation documents, share register, director resolutions, statutory filings, internal policies, and the decision records of the internal governance process Tech Sight runs on its own platform |
| Finance and tax | Bank records, invoices issued and received, statements, budgets, cost ledgers, tax returns and correspondence with the South African Revenue Service |
| Clients and engagements | Enquiries, proposals, engagement letters and contracts, assessment scorecards and reports, deliverables, working papers, correspondence, and records of time spent |
| Personnel and contractors | Contracts of employment and contractor agreements, remuneration and payroll records where applicable, performance and disciplinary records, statutory registrations |
| Recruitment services (on request) | Client vacancy briefs, candidate applications and curricula vitae, interview and placement records, including records from the period in which recruitment was Tech Sight's principal business |
| Products and their customers | LinguistPro user accounts, credit balances and payment records, support correspondence, and audio and transcripts while they are being processed; archived subscriber and billing records for the withdrawn TechSight Data Feeds plans; the open-source illusion-of-correctness package, which holds no personal information |
| Marketing and communications | Website content, published articles, the AI Brief archive, social media content, and enquiries received |
| Information technology and platform | Source code, system configuration, access and audit logs, server logs, backups, incident and issue registers, and records of automated processing including which model or provider handled a task |
| Legal and compliance | Contracts, non-disclosure agreements, legal opinions and reviews, privacy notices, this manual, and records kept to demonstrate compliance with POPIA |
| Suppliers and service providers | Contracts, service agreements, invoices and correspondence |
Tech Sight processes personal information in order to:
Tech Sight does not send marketing email and keeps no mailing list.
| Category of data subjects | Personal information that may be processed |
|---|---|
| Clients, prospective clients and their staff | Names, job titles, employer, business contact details, correspondence, and the content of engagement records |
| People who enquire by email | Name, email address, and whatever they choose to include in the message |
| LinguistPro users | Name, email address, account identifiers, credit balance and payment references, usage records, support correspondence, and the audio and transcripts they upload while those are being processed |
| People whose voices appear in audio uploaded by a LinguistPro user | The spoken words and anything else the recording reveals. LinguistPro converts speech to text, labels the distinct speakers within a recording, and where a meeting video shows participants' names on screen reads those names to label the speakers. It does not identify a person by their voice, hold voiceprints, or match voices across recordings. Tech Sight processes the recording on the instructions of the user who uploaded it, under the LinguistPro terms of use |
| Past subscribers to TechSight Data Feeds | Name, email address, organisation, subscription and billing references, API usage records |
| Employees and contractors | Identity number, contact details, qualifications, banking details, remuneration, tax number, and employment or contract records |
| Candidates in recruitment services | Identity number, contact details, curriculum vitae, qualifications, employment history, references, interview notes and gender. Where a client must comply with the Employment Equity Act 55 of 1998, also race or ethnic origin and health information about disability, which are special personal information under section 26 of POPIA, processed under section 31(b) to the extent necessary to comply with laws designed to protect or advance persons disadvantaged by unfair discrimination, and otherwise only with the candidate's consent under section 27(1)(a) |
| Suppliers and service providers | Names, registration and tax numbers, contact details, banking details and contract records |
| Website visitors | IP address, time of request, page requested, referring page and browser identification, in the server logs kept by the hosting provider |
| Category of personal information | Recipients or categories of recipients |
|---|---|
| Any category, where it is stored or transmitted | Hosting, database, email and backup providers acting as operators |
| Payment references for LinguistPro | PayFast, the payment processor for LinguistPro |
| Billing references for the withdrawn Data Feeds plans | Polar, which acted as Merchant of Record for those plans |
| Audio and transcripts of LinguistPro users | Speech-recognition and language-model providers that perform the transcription and the summaries, acting as operators |
| Business correspondence and documents | Language-model providers used for drafting and review, acting as operators under their written data-processing terms |
| Financial and tax records | The South African Revenue Service, banks, and accountants or auditors |
| Employment records | The Unemployment Insurance Fund, the Compensation Fund and the South African Revenue Service, where applicable |
| Any category, where the law requires it | Regulators, courts and law enforcement, on a lawful request |
| Any category, in an engagement | Professional advisers bound by confidentiality, where the engagement requires it |
Tech Sight does not sell personal information and does not supply it to anyone for their own marketing.
Tech Sight's production systems run in Johannesburg, South Africa, and the website and its email are hosted in South Africa. Some personal information is, however, stored or processed outside the Republic, as follows:
| What | Where | Category of personal information | Basis under section 72(1) of POPIA |
|---|---|---|---|
| Primary application database | Ireland (European Union) | Client, engagement, governance and platform records | (a): the provider is an operator bound by a written data-processing agreement, in a jurisdiction whose law gives substantially similar protection |
| LinguistPro database | United Kingdom | LinguistPro user accounts, credit balances, payment references, usage records | (a), as above |
| LinguistPro web application hosting | United States | Requests made to the application, including IP addresses | (a): operator bound by a written data-processing agreement |
| Speech-recognition and language-model providers for LinguistPro | United States | Audio and transcripts while being processed | (a): operators bound by their written data-processing terms; and (c): the transfer is necessary to perform the contract between the LinguistPro user and Tech Sight |
| Language-model providers used for drafting and review | United States | Business correspondence and documents | (a): operators bound by their written data-processing terms |
| Business documents and email attachments held in cloud document storage | United States and other locations used by the provider | Client, engagement, finance and personnel documents | (a): operator bound by a written data-processing agreement |
| Source code repositories | United States | Source code and configuration; business records where they are kept alongside code | (a): operator bound by a written data-processing agreement |
| Encrypted off-site backups | Germany (European Union) | Encrypted copies of platform data and payment-system keys, readable only with keys held in South Africa | (a), as for Ireland; the recipient cannot read the data |
Section 72(1)(a) is satisfied where the recipient is subject to a law, binding corporate rules or a binding agreement providing an adequate level of protection that effectively upholds principles for reasonable processing substantially similar to the conditions in the Act. Section 72(1)(c) applies where the transfer is necessary for the performance of a contract between the data subject and the responsible party. Tech Sight keeps the data-processing agreement or terms relied on for each row and will produce it to the Regulator on request.
Tech Sight applies the measures section 19 of POPIA requires, appropriate to the size of the business and the risk of the information. In summary:
Separately from a PAIA request, a data subject may under POPIA:
The forms are available from the Regulator at inforegulator.org.za and from the Information Officer on request. Send a completed Form 1 or Form 2 to info@techsight.co.za. Tech Sight will respond to a correction or deletion request within 30 days, as regulation 3 requires. No fee applies.
Personal information is not kept longer than the purpose requires, as section 14 of POPIA provides, unless a law, a contract or the data subject's consent requires or permits longer.
9.1 A request must be made on Form 2 prescribed under regulation 7 of the Regulations relating to the Promotion of Access to Information, 2021, which is available from the Regulator at inforegulator.org.za, or from the Information Officer on request. Proof of identity must be attached, and where the request is made on behalf of another person, proof of that authority.
9.2 Send the completed form to the Information Officer at info@techsight.co.za or to the head office address in section 3.4.
9.3 A requester must identify the right they seek to exercise or protect and explain why the record is required for that purpose, because section 50(1) of PAIA gives access to a record of a private body only where the record is required for the exercise or protection of a right.
9.4 The request fee prescribed for private bodies in Annexure B of the Regulations is R140.00 and is payable before the request will be considered, except by a personal requester, who under section 54(1) of PAIA pays no request fee when asking for a record about themselves. The fee for access depends on the form of access and the time reasonably required to search for and prepare the record, at the Annexure B rates: R2.00 per A4 page copied or printed; R40.00 for a copy on a flash drive supplied by the requester; R40.00 or R60.00 for a copy on compact disc depending on who supplies the disc; R24.00 per A4 page for a transcription of an audio record; and R145.00 for each hour or part of an hour, excluding the first, reasonably required to search for and prepare the record, not exceeding R435.00 in total. Where the search will exceed six hours a deposit of one third of the estimated access fee may be required. Postage, email or electronic transfer is charged at actual cost, if any. These figures are those in Annexure B as published by the Regulator at the date of this manual; if the Regulations are amended, the amended figures apply.
9.5 Tech Sight will decide on the request as soon as reasonably possible and in any event within 30 days of receiving it, as section 56 of PAIA requires of a private body. That period may be extended once, for not more than a further 30 days, on the grounds in section 57, and the requester will be told in writing if it is. The requester will be notified in writing whether the request has been granted or refused, and of the fees payable if it is granted.
9.6 Access may be refused only on a ground in Chapter 4 of Part 3 of PAIA (sections 62 to 70), such as the protection of another person's privacy, the commercial information of a third party, or legal professional privilege, and a notice of refusal will state the ground relied on. If a request is refused, or Tech Sight fails to decide it in time, the requester may lodge a complaint with the Regulator under section 77A of PAIA, or apply to a court under section 78.
10.1 This manual is available in English. A copy is available:
The head of Tech Sight will update this manual on a regular basis, and whenever the categories of records, the processing of personal information, or the contact details in it change.
Issued by
Frans Vermaak Chief Executive Officer and Information Officer, Tech Sight (Pty) Ltd Date: 14 September 2026