Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains what personal information DocPicks collects, why, and what rights you have over it, in line with South Africa's Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013 (POPIA).

DocPicks is operated by Michael Walker, an individual based in South Africa (not a registered company). For the purposes of POPIA, Michael Walker is the responsible party and the registered Information Officer, contactable at hello@docpicks.com.

What we collect

• Email address — collected when you create an account or unlock the paid tool, so we can identify your account and contact you about it.
• Display name — the name on your account. If you buy the personalised unlock, this is also passed to PayFast as the buyer's name.
• Home province — which you choose when you set up your account, and which helps us show you relevant hospital information.
• Saved preferences and shortlist — the weightings and hospital shortlists you save while using the tool.
• Payment status — whether you've paid for the personalised unlock, and basic transaction references from PayFast. We never see or store your card details — those are handled entirely by PayFast.

We don't run a forum or accept user-generated content beyond what you save to your own account.

Cookies

We set one cookie. It keeps you signed in so you don't have to sign in every visit. It's necessary for the site to work, and it isn't used for advertising or tracking.

Website analytics

We use Vercel Web Analytics to see how many people visit the site and which pages they look at. It doesn't use cookies, it doesn't follow you across other websites, and it doesn't tell us who you are. What we see is aggregate: page views, roughly where in the world visitors are, and the kind of device they used.

Why we collect it

We use this information to run your account, save your preferences and shortlist between visits, confirm and manage your paid unlock, and contact you about your account if needed (for example, a payment issue or a password reset).

Who we share it with

• Supabase — database and account login/authentication.
• Vercel — website hosting and website analytics.
• PayFast — payment processing for the paid unlock. PayFast handles your card or payment details directly; DocPicks never receives or stores them. PayFast's own Privacy Policy (payfast.io/privacy-policy) applies to information you provide directly to them.
• Resend — sending account-related emails (for example, confirmations or password resets).

We don't sell your personal information, and we don't share it with anyone else except where required by law.

How long we keep it

We keep your information for as long as your account is active, or as long as reasonably needed for the purpose it was collected for. If you ask us to delete your account, we'll delete your personal information, except where we're required to keep certain records (for example, payment records) for legal or accounting purposes.

Your rights

Under POPIA, you can ask us to: tell you what personal information we hold about you; correct information that's wrong or out of date; delete your account and personal information; or explain how and why we're using your information.

To do any of this, email hello@docpicks.com. We'll respond as promptly as we reasonably can.

Security

We take reasonable technical and organisational steps to protect your information, using established third-party providers (Supabase, Vercel, PayFast, Resend) for hosting, payments and email rather than storing sensitive data ourselves. That said, no method of transmission or storage over the internet is completely secure, and we can't guarantee absolute security.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. The latest version will always be posted on this page.

Contact

Questions about this policy, or a request relating to your personal information? Email hello@docpicks.com.

Version 1.1 — 30 July 2026