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Early access. The Dignity Navigator is in early access: everything works, and we are still polishing. If something goes wrong, tell us and we will fix it.

Privacy statement

Protecting your personal information

10 October 2026 statement

In short

  • What we collect. Your account details, what you write, the documents you upload, and the details of people you name.
  • Why we collect it. To give you the Navigator and do what you ask, such as sending a reminder. We use it for nothing else unless the law requires it, and we never sell it.
  • What you write and upload is private. Our everyday staff tools have no way to access your answers or documents. Revealing them under four very specific circumstances needs a strictly controlled procedure involving the approval of two senior administrators. We will always tell you when we do.
  • Encrypted with AES-256, and stored safely in South Africa. Your answers and documents are encrypted with AES-256 and stored entirely in South Africa, on Amazon Web Services in Cape Town.
  • Nothing is shared unless you choose. People you invite are given access to see your answers and documents once they accept. You can remove them at any time.
  • You stay in control. Download or delete your information at any time.

This is your choice. You can withdraw your consent at any time by emailing info@dignitysouthafrica.org.

Dignity South Africa (Dignity SA NPC, registration 2025/680715/08; registered non-profit organisation 097-936-NPO) is the responsible party for the personal information you give us in the Dignity Navigator. Our Information Officers are our Executive Directors, who can be reached at info@dignitysouthafrica.org.

  • Your account details: name, email address and, if you give it, your WhatsApp number and postal address.
  • Your Navigator answers: the reflections, choices, names and contact details you enter in the courses, including the people you nominate to act for you.
  • Documents you upload to your vault, such as a Will, a Section 7 Mandate, a Living Will or policy papers.
  • Your reminder and referral requests, and a record of when you accepted this statement.

Some of this is special personal information under POPIA, because reflections about the end of life can reveal health, religious or moral views. We treat all of it with the highest care.

Some of what you enter is about other people, such as the people you invite or name to act for you. Please let them know that you have shared their details with us. When you invite someone, our invitation tells them who we are and why we have their details.

  • To give you the Dignity Navigator: to save your progress, keep your documents together and show you the right next step.
  • To do what you ask us to do, such as sending you a reminder to review your Will or introducing you to a provider you asked about.
  • To keep the service working safely, including preventing abuse and keeping backups.

We will not use your Navigator information for any other purpose unless the law requires it. We do not sell personal information.

Where we ask for your consent, that consent is the basis for processing, and you may withdraw it at any time. Some processing is necessary to provide the service you have joined or to meet a legal duty.

Your answers, your documents and our backups are stored entirely in South Africa, on Amazon Web Services in Cape Town, copied across at least three physically separate data centres so that they would survive the loss of an entire data centre. Our database and document storage are encrypted at rest. Each of your Navigator answers is also encrypted with AES-256, using a key unique to you, before it is saved. Those keys are protected by a separate key service under DignitySA's control rather than kept in our database, so a copy of the database cannot be read on its own. Your documents and their names are encrypted in storage. Information travels over encrypted connections, backups are encrypted before they leave our systems, and any use of the keys that protect your answers and documents, other than by the Navigator itself and our automatic backups, automatically sends an alert to our administrators.

In the normal course of the service, only you and the people you choose to invite can read your Navigator answers and open your documents. A person you invite sees everything you have saved and every document in your vault, but only after they accept your invitation, and they can only view, never change. You can see when each person last looked, and you can remove anyone's access at any time.

DignitySA's everyday staff tools show your progress and account details, such as which steps you have completed and whether you have unlocked full access, but never your answers, nor the contents or names of your documents. Because DignitySA holds the encryption keys, opening your answers and documents is technically possible, so we allow it only through a break-glass procedure, and only for one of four reasons: you asked us for help; a verified request after your death, or if you can no longer decide for yourself; a legal order; or a security incident.

Under that procedure, one administrator must ask, giving the reason, and a different administrator must approve, each confirming with a code from their own authenticator. An approved request can be used once, read-only, for at most 60 minutes, and every step and every document opened is recorded. We will always tell you when a request has been approved, and for a request after your death or loss of capacity we also tell the people you invited who have accepted.

Nothing is shared with anyone else unless you ask us to, for example by requesting an introduction to a provider, in which case we tell you what will be shared before you confirm. Our service providers, such as our hosting, storage and email services, process data on our instructions and under contract.

Your Navigator information is kept for as long as you keep your account, or until you delete it yourself on the Your information page or ask us to delete it. When a profile is deleted, its Navigator answers, requests and vault documents are deleted with it. Deleted information may persist in encrypted backups for up to about 13 months before it is removed in turn: monthly backups are kept for 12 months, and a locked safety copy of each backup, which nobody, DignitySA included, can delete early, for 35 days after that.

  • To know what personal information we hold about you and to receive a copy. You can download a copy of your Navigator information yourself on the Your information page, linked at the foot of every Navigator page.
  • To have inaccurate information corrected.
  • To have your information deleted, or to withdraw your consent. You can delete your Navigator information yourself on the Your information page, or email info@dignitysouthafrica.org.
  • To object to processing, and to complain to the Information Regulator of South Africa (www.inforegulator.org.za) if you believe your information has been mishandled.

If we change this statement in a way that matters, we will ask you to read and accept it again before you continue. You can read the current version at any time from the link at the foot of every Navigator page, where you will also find answers to common questions about your privacy.