Privacy Policy
Last updated: 31 October 2026
This policy explains what personal information STB Studios collects, why, who helps us process it, and your rights under South Africa’s Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA).
The short version
- We collect what you send us, such as your contact details and what you need, so we can reply, book calls and do the work.
- Our WhatsApp line is answered first by an AI assistant. Ezekiel takes over whenever a person is needed.
- We use a small number of trusted service providers, listed below. Some are based outside South Africa.
- We don’t sell your information, and we don’t send you marketing you didn’t ask for.
- You can ask to see, correct or delete your information at any time.
Who we are
STB Studios (Pty) Ltd (“STB Studios”) is a web design studio in Stellenbosch, South Africa, run by Ezekiel Zubair Williams. Under POPIA we are the “responsible party” for the personal information described here.
- Registered company: STB Studios (Pty) Ltd, CIPC registration number K2026666338
- Website: stbstudios.co.za
- Email: zubairwilliams19@gmail.com
- WhatsApp: +27 74 762 2373 (answered first by our AI assistant)
- Information Officer: Ezekiel Zubair Williams, registered with the Information Regulator (the email above, or WhatsApp +27 72 104 9596 to reach him directly)
What we collect
When you message us on WhatsApp
- Your WhatsApp profile name, and your number. If you’ve hidden your number behind a WhatsApp username, we receive your username and a WhatsApp user ID instead.
- Your messages, and the details of any booking: the date and time, what it’s about, and any contact number you give us.
- If you send a voice note, our assistant turns it into text with Google’s speech recognition so it can reply. The recording is deleted as soon as it’s transcribed; only the text stays in the conversation. The assistant can’t open photos or files, and we don’t download or keep them.
When you use the contact form on our website
- Your name, business name, email address, phone number and message.
When you email or call us
- Whatever you choose to share.
When you visit our website
- Our website host, GitHub Pages, records technical information such as your IP address in its server logs.
- Your browser contacts Google to load our fonts and the map on our contact section, so Google receives your IP address and may set its own cookies when the map loads.
- Our website itself doesn’t set cookies and doesn’t run analytics or advertising trackers.
When you become a client
- Project details, the content and photos you give us for your website, and the details we need to quote and invoice you.
Why we use it
| Purpose | Why we’re allowed to |
|---|---|
| Replying to you and answering your questions | You contacted us and asked us to |
| Booking and holding discovery calls, quoting and building your website | Needed for the steps before, and during, a contract with you |
| Passing your enquiry to the right person | Our legitimate interest in answering you properly |
| Keeping booking records, quotes and invoices | Legal obligations (such as tax) and our legitimate interest in running the business |
| Keeping our systems secure and preventing abuse | Our legitimate interest in protecting our service and you |
We don’t use your information for purposes that don’t fit these reasons.
Our AI WhatsApp assistant
When you message STB Studios on WhatsApp, an AI assistant answers first. It runs on Claude, an AI model made by Anthropic.
- It knows only our business information. It answers from that, and doesn’t make up prices or promises.
- It can book a call. It checks Ezekiel’s calendar and puts the booking in it.
- It hands over to a person. It passes your conversation to Ezekiel when you ask for a person, or when you need something it can’t do. You can ask for Ezekiel at any time.
- It doesn’t decide anything important about you on its own. Quotes, agreements and anything else with real consequences for you are decided by a person.
- It has a short memory. It keeps your recent conversation (up to your last 60 messages) so it can follow along, and deletes it automatically after 7 days without messages. Bookings and handovers are also written to our booking records; see “How long we keep it”.
- It keeps a record of each conversation. About 30 minutes after a conversation goes quiet, a short summary and the full text are saved in our records (a Google Sheet), so Ezekiel can follow up and see what people ask. See “How long we keep it”.
Who we share it with
We use these service providers (“operators” under POPIA) to process information on our behalf, under their own data protection terms:
| Provider | What they do for us |
|---|---|
| Meta (WhatsApp) | Delivers WhatsApp messages between you and us |
| Anthropic | Provides the AI model that writes the assistant’s replies |
| Google (Calendar, Sheets, Gmail, Speech-to-Text) | Our booking calendar, our booking and conversation records, our email, and turning voice notes into text (processed in the EU) |
| Modal | Hosts the assistant’s software and its short-term conversation memory |
| GitHub (GitHub Pages) | Hosts our website |
| Web3Forms | Delivers messages from our website’s contact form to our email |
We never sell or rent your personal information. We only share it with anyone else if the law requires us to.
Information sent outside South Africa
Most of the providers above store or process information outside South Africa, mainly in the United States and Europe. POPIA (section 72) allows this when the recipient is bound by laws, rules or agreements that protect your information to a standard similar to POPIA, or when the transfer is needed to respond to you or to carry out a contract with you. We only use established providers that commit to protecting personal information in their data processing terms.
How long we keep it
| Information | How long |
|---|---|
| The assistant’s conversation memory | Deleted automatically after 7 days without messages |
| Booking, handover and conversation records, and calendar entries | 24 months after our last contact, unless you become a client |
| Website form messages and emails | 24 months after our last contact |
| Client records (quotes, invoices, project files) | 24 months after the project ends, except records the law requires us to keep longer (tax records: 5 years) |
After that we delete it, or remove anything that identifies you.
How we protect it
- All connections to our website and our assistant are encrypted (HTTPS).
- The assistant only accepts messages that are verified as genuinely coming from WhatsApp.
- Access keys are kept in protected storage, never in our website’s code.
- The assistant’s Google access is limited to our booking sheet, the calendars we share with it, and turning voice notes into text.
- Only Ezekiel has access to your information.
If a security breach affects your personal information, we’ll tell you and the Information Regulator, as POPIA requires.
Your rights
Under POPIA you can:
- ask whether we hold personal information about you, and get a copy
- ask us to correct, update or delete it
- object to us processing it, including for marketing
- withdraw any consent you’ve given
- complain to the Information Regulator (details below)
To use any of these rights, WhatsApp or email us. We may need to confirm your identity first, and we’ll respond within 30 days.
Marketing
We don’t send marketing messages you didn’t ask for. On WhatsApp, we only message you to reply to you, or about a booking you made. If you’d rather not hear from us, tell us and we’ll stop.
Children
Our services are for businesses and adults. We don’t knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18.
Changes to this policy
If anything changes, we’ll update this page and the “Last updated” date at the top.
Contact and complaints
STB Studios (Pty) Ltd, Information Officer: Ezekiel Zubair Williams
zubairwilliams19@gmail.com · WhatsApp +27 72 104 9596
If you’re not happy with how we’ve handled your information, you can complain to the Information Regulator (South Africa):
- Website: inforegulator.org.za
- Complaints: POPIAComplaints@inforegulator.org.za
- Phone: 010 023 5200 · Toll-free: 0800 017 160
- Address: Woodmead North Office Park, 54 Maxwell Drive, Woodmead, Johannesburg, 2191
