HelloYesHelloYes Alerts

Privacy Policy

Last updated 8 October 2026

How HelloYes Alerts collects, uses and protects the personal information of the people it sends monitoring alerts to.

HelloYes Alerts is an internal tool operated by HelloYes in South Africa. It receives alerts from our monitoring systems and forwards them as WhatsApp messages to staff and contractors who have agreed to be paged. This policy explains what information the service holds about you, why, and what you can do about it. It is written to comply with the Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013 (POPIA).

  1. 01Who is responsible

    HelloYes is the responsible party for the personal information processed by HelloYes Alerts. You can reach us about anything in this policy at bekithemba@helloyes.co.za.

  2. 02What we collect

    If you receive alerts, the service holds:

    • Your name and mobile number (stored in international format without the plus sign, which is how WhatsApp requires it).
    • Whether alerts to you are on or paused, and the time you opted out if you did.
    • Your quiet hours and whether critical alerts may still reach you inside them.
    • Which monitored systems and, optionally, which specific alerts an administrator has subscribed you to.
    • A private, unguessable link that lets you change these settings without logging in.
    • A log of every alert message addressed to you: alert name, severity, the affected host, a short summary, when it was sent, held or skipped, and the delivery, read or failure status WhatsApp reports back, together with the WhatsApp message id.
    • A log of non-alert WhatsApp exchanges with you: the welcome message, HELP, STOP and START replies, our confirmations, and the text of any message you send to our number.

    If you are an administrator, the service also holds your email address, display name, a hashed password and a signed session cookie.

    Our web server keeps standard access logs (IP address, time, path and user agent) for security and troubleshooting.

  3. 03Where it comes from

    • An administrator at HelloYes adds your name and number when you join an on-call rota.
    • You, when you use the self-service page or reply to our WhatsApp number.
    • Meta, which sends us delivery and read receipts for messages we send you.
    • Our monitoring systems, which supply the content of each alert.

  4. 04Why we use it

    • To send you the alerts you are subscribed to, and only those, respecting your quiet hours.
    • To honour STOP, START and HELP replies and the settings you choose on the self-service page.
    • To show administrators what was sent, to whom, and whether it arrived, so delivery problems can be found and fixed.
    • To keep the service secure and to investigate abuse or faults.

    Under POPIA we rely on your consent (you are welcomed with a message explaining how to stop at any time) and on our legitimate interest in keeping the services we run available. We do not use this information for marketing, profiling or automated decisions about you, and we never sell it.

  5. 05Who we share it with

    • Meta Platforms, Inc. and its affiliates, which operate the WhatsApp Business Platform that carries our messages. Your number and the message content pass through WhatsApp and are subject to the WhatsApp Privacy Policy.
    • The hosting provider for the server HelloYes runs the service on. The provider has no routine access to the data.

    No one else. We do not use advertising or analytics services on this site.

  6. 06How long we keep it

    • Your recipient record (name, number, settings, subscriptions and self-service link) is kept while you are registered to receive alerts.
    • When you are removed, those details are deleted and your number is scrubbed from the alert and message logs, which are kept only as anonymised records of what the service did.
    • Alert and message logs are otherwise kept for operational troubleshooting. You can ask for the entries about you to be removed at any time.
    • Web server access logs rotate automatically under the server policy.

    The database is not currently copied to any backup service, so deletion is immediate and final.

  7. 07How we protect it

    • All traffic to the site is encrypted with TLS.
    • Every management screen requires an administrator login; passwords are stored only as salted hashes.
    • The self-service link contains a long random token. Anyone with the link can change your settings, so keep it private; reply HELP on WhatsApp if you need it again.
    • Inbound webhooks from WhatsApp are signature-checked, and the endpoint our monitoring posts to is not reachable from the internet.
    • Access to the server is limited to the engineers who run it.

  8. 08Your rights

    Under POPIA you may:

    • Ask what personal information we hold about you and receive a copy.
    • Have it corrected if it is wrong.
    • Withdraw consent and stop receiving messages at any time: reply STOP on WhatsApp, or switch alerts off on your self-service page.
    • Have your information deleted. See our data deletion instructions at https://alerts.helloyes.co.za/data-deletion.
    • Object to processing, and complain to the Information Regulator (South Africa) at inforeg.org.za if you believe we have not handled your information lawfully.

    To exercise any of these, email bekithemba@helloyes.co.za or ask the administrator who added you.

  9. 09Children

    The service is for working adults. We do not knowingly register anyone under 18.

  10. 10Changes to this policy

    We will post any changes on this page and update the date at the top. If a change materially affects how we use your information, recipients will be told by WhatsApp.