Privacy

This notice explains how The Coastal — an independent digital newsroom in KuGompo City, Eastern Cape — collects, uses, stores and protects personal information when you read the site, write to us, subscribe, or work in the newsroom. We take that responsibility seriously. The law that governs this work in South Africa is the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA).

We collect only what we need to run the publication. We do not sell personal information.

Who this applies to

This notice applies if you visit thecoastal.co.za (or any address we use to publish The Coastal), email us, subscribe to a newsletter, or have a staff account on the newsroom system.

What we mean by personal information

Personal information is information that identifies you, or that can reasonably be linked to you — for example your name, email address, or a message you send us. It does not include information that has been stripped of identifiers, or ordinary anonymous statistics such as how many people opened a story.

What we collect and why

Depending on how you use The Coastal, we may process:

Messages you send us. If you email newsroom@thecoastal.co.za with a tip, a letter, a correction or an advertising enquiry, we keep that correspondence so we can reply and do our jobs.

Coastal Spotters Network. If you send a tip or join the Spotters Network, we keep the details you give us — such as your name, email, phone number, home area, interests, coverage areas, tip messages and any photos you attach to a tip — so we can manage the network, follow up on tips, and communicate with you about related newsroom work. WhatsApp community membership is optional and separate from general consent; asking to join does not add you automatically. Staff invite people manually. Spotter details are not published as public profiles.

Launch list and newsletter. If you enter your first name and email address on the Coming Soon page (or later, to receive The Coastal Brief), we keep that name so we can greet you, and that address so we can tell you when the publication launches and, if you stay subscribed, send the newsletter you asked for. That is the only use we will make of it unless you tell us otherwise. Each confirmation email includes an unsubscribe link, which marks your address as unsubscribed rather than deleting the record immediately. You can also write to us to ask us to delete it.

Weather preference. If you pick a town on the weather widget, we store that choice in a small cookie so the forecast is waiting when you come back. It is a place name, not your identity.

Story reads. We count how often a published article is opened so we can rank “Most read”. That count is attached to the story, not to you.

Usage analytics. On the public site we use Google Analytics 4 to see which pages are read, how people find us, and roughly where readers are. That helps us understand the publication, not to sell data or show ads. Google processes this on our instructions. We do not load analytics on the newsroom system, or on local and preview copies of the site.

Hosting logs. Like most websites, our host may record technical details of a visit — such as IP address, browser type and the pages requested — to keep the site running, diagnose faults and protect against abuse.

We do not run subscription billing or third-party advertising pixels on this site today. If we add them, we will update this notice.

Cookies

A cookie is a small file stored on your device. The Coastal uses a functional cookie to remember the town you selected for weather. Google Analytics also sets first-party cookies (typically named _ga and _ga_*) so we can tell a new visit from a returning one. You can delete cookies in your browser; if you do, the weather widget will fall back to its default town until you choose again, and analytics will treat you as a new visitor. We do not use cookies to follow you around the web or to build an advertising profile.

Newsletter and messages

We will not add you to a promotional list unless you ask to be on one. You can stop a newsletter at any time by using the unsubscribe link in the email, or by writing to us. Administrative replies — for example answering a correction request — are not marketing.

Staff accounts and newsroom documents

People who work on The Coastal have accounts on the newsroom system. Those accounts hold a name, email address, password and role (author, sub, editor or administrator). Sign-in is handled by our authentication provider.

Editors may upload source documents — council papers, reports, correspondence — into a private store so the newsroom can report from the public record. Those files are not a reader profile. We may send them to a contracted AI service to help with transcription, analysis and a first draft. A human editor still reviews, edits and approves every story. AI does not publish. How we report is set out in our editorial policy.

Sharing

We share personal information only where we must in order to operate: with the companies that host the website and email, with Google for usage analytics on the public site, with our authentication provider for staff logins, and with the AI provider when a staff member uploads a document for newsroom analysis. Those parties process information on our instructions, not to sell it on.

We may disclose information if the law requires it, or to protect the publication, our staff or other people from serious harm. We do not sell personal information, and we do not share reader details with advertisers.

Security and retention

We use reasonable technical and organisational measures to keep information safe, including access controls on the newsroom and private storage for uploaded documents. No system is perfectly secure. If we become aware of a breach that affects you, we will follow the law on notification.

We keep information only as long as we need it for the purpose we collected it — to answer you, to send a newsletter you asked for, to run a staff account, or to meet a legal or journalistic obligation — and then we delete or anonymise it.

Your rights

Under POPIA you may ask us to confirm whether we hold personal information about you, to see it, to correct it, to delete it where we have no lawful reason to keep it, or to object to a particular use. We may need to verify who you are before we act on a request, and the law allows limited exceptions (for example where disclosure would invade someone else’s privacy, or undermine a story we are still working).

Send requests to newsroom@thecoastal.co.za.

Children

The Coastal is a news site for a general audience. We do not knowingly create accounts or newsletter subscriptions for people under 18. If you believe a child has given us personal information, write to us and we will delete it.

Changes

We may update this notice when the site or the law changes. The current version will always be on this page. If a change is material, we will say so here.

Enquiries

Questions about this notice, or about personal information we hold: newsroom@thecoastal.co.za, or via our contact page. The Coastal, KuGompo City, Eastern Cape, South Africa.

Complaints

Please write to us first so we can try to put it right. You may also lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator, the statutory body that oversees POPIA, at inforegulator.org.za.