locl (“we”, “us”, “our”) operates an AI-augmented search, chat, and clip platform for South African talk radio at locl.co.za. This policy explains what personal information we collect, how we use it, and the rights you have over it. We act as a responsible party under the South African Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013 (PoPIA).
What we collect
- Account information.When you sign in — either with email and password or with Google — we receive your email address, a unique user identifier, and (for Google sign-in) the name and profile picture you have made public on your Google account. We do not receive your Google password.
- Product activity. Searches you run, chat conversations you start, clips you generate, and report suggestions you submit. We use this to provide the service and to improve search quality.
- Technical data. Standard server logs (IP address, browser type, request paths, timestamps) for security, abuse prevention, and debugging.
- Email preferences. If you subscribe to the daily briefing or a podcast feed, we store the email address you provided and your delivery preferences.
What we don’t collect
- We don’t use third-party advertising trackers or behavioural advertising cookies.
- We don’t sell or rent personal information to third parties.
- We don’t store your Google password — OAuth means Google authenticates you on our behalf.
How we use your information
- To authenticate you and grant access to the product.
- To operate features you use directly: search, chat, clips, alerts, the daily briefing, and reports.
- To maintain the security and reliability of the service (rate limiting, fraud and abuse prevention).
- To send transactional and product email — for example, the briefing you subscribed to, or a notification that an alert you set has matched a new transcript chunk. We do not send marketing email without your explicit opt-in.
- To improve search quality and the relevance of editorial output. Aggregate, de-identified usage data may inform what topics we cover in reports.
Sub-processors
We use the following third-party processors to run the service. Each is bound by contractual confidentiality and data-protection obligations.
- Supabase— authentication, database, and storage.
- Fly.io— application hosting (region: Johannesburg).
- Anthropic— large-language-model inference for chat and reports. Your prompts and chat messages are sent to Anthropic for generation; Anthropic does not train on customer API data.
- OpenAI— embedding generation for search. Your search queries are sent to OpenAI to compute embeddings; OpenAI does not train on customer API data.
- Google— if you choose to sign in with Google, Google authenticates you and shares the profile fields above with us.
- Resend— transactional email delivery (briefing, alerts).
- Speechify— text-to-speech rendering for the briefing audio.
Retention
- Account and product data are retained for the life of your account. When you delete your account, we delete or anonymise your personal information within 30 days, except where we are legally required to retain it longer.
- Raw broadcast audio is held in a rolling buffer for no longer than seven days, used only for transcription and clip rendering.
- Server logs are retained for up to 90 days for security and debugging.
Your rights under PoPIA
You have the right to:
- Access the personal information we hold about you and ask for a copy.
- Correct information that is inaccurate, irrelevant, or out of date.
- Delete information we are no longer entitled to hold, including by deleting your account.
- Object to processing, including direct marketing (we do not currently send direct marketing).
- Lodge a complaint with the South African Information Regulator at inforegulator.org.za.
Children
locl is intended for adult users (18+). We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe we hold information about a child, contact us and we will delete it.
Changes to this policy
We may update this policy from time to time. We will post the new version on this page with a revised “last updated” date. Material changes affecting your rights will be communicated by email or a prominent notice in the product.
Contact
Questions about this policy or to exercise any right above: privacy@locl.co.za.