Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013

Privacy notice

6 November 2026. This notice explains how C.K.Software handles personal information in connection with the VanishVault website and software.

1. Responsible party

For personal information that C.K.Software actually receives, the responsible party is C.K.Software, South Africa. The information officer can be reached at cksoftware920@gmail.com. A company registration number and a street address are not published on this website.

For the files on your phone and laptop, you decide whether to copy them and where they go. You are the responsible party for personal information inside those files. C.K.Software supplies the software and does not receive the file contents.

2. This website

The site is a set of pages and two download files. It has no account, no comment form, and no mailing list. Public pages do not set cookies and do not load analytics, advertising, or fonts from another company. The only cookie is described in the cookie notice, and it is set only after someone signs in to the admin page on this computer.

If the site is later placed on a host, that host may keep ordinary connection logs, such as an IP address and the page requested, under the host’s own rules. C.K.Software does not add a tracker to these pages. Downloading a file does not create a C.K.Software profile.

If you email C.K.Software, the message contains whatever you put in it, including your email address and any attachment. That correspondence is used to answer you and to keep a record of the request.

If you subscribe, the email you enter is sent to Paystack with the payment request. The card number is entered on Paystack's page, not in VanishVault. The laptop stores the Paystack result, including whether the plan is active and until when.

3. What the apps handle on your devices

VanishVault runs on your Android phone and your Windows PC. The processing below happens on those devices so that a copy can be made. It is not sent to C.K.Software.

• The files you choose to send, which may include photographs, documents, file names, and folder names.
• The laptop name, the local network address, the port, and the certificate the phone saved when you paired.
• A pairing token, if you set one. On the phone it is kept in Android secure storage.
• The activity log on the phone, including successful sends and failed schedule attempts, stored on the phone.
• On the laptop, the received files, a local index, a SHA-256 check, and the app’s settings file.

The purpose is to pair the devices, copy the files you asked for, check the bytes that were written, show you what happened, retry a schedule that could not connect, and restore a file to the phone when you ask.

The condition C.K.Software relies on for designing the app this way is that the user is acting for their own household or their own devices, and has chosen to copy the files. Section 6 of POPIA can also mean that purely personal or household activity falls outside parts of the Act. Where you copy someone else’s personal information for another purpose, you need your own lawful basis.

4. Photographs and other sensitive information

A photo of a person, a document with an ID number, or a child’s information can be personal information, and some of it can be special personal information under POPIA. VanishVault will copy a file you select. It does not inspect that file for C.K.Software, and C.K.Software does not collect it. Do not use the app to copy special personal information unless you are allowed to.

5. Children

VanishVault is not aimed at children, and C.K.Software does not knowingly collect personal information from a child through this website. The site does not ask for a date of birth, because it has no account. A parent who copies a child’s files with the app is doing that on their own devices.

6. Who else sees information

C.K.Software does not sell personal information and does not use it for direct marketing. There is no mailing list, so the site does not send marketing email and there is no unsubscribe link. There is no direct-marketing opt-in because no marketing list is kept.

Microsoft or Google become involved only if you turn on a second copy in the OneDrive or Google Drive folder already signed in on the laptop. VanishVault uses that local folder. It does not send your cloud password to C.K.Software. Microsoft’s or Google’s own terms then apply to the copy in their service, and that copy may be stored outside South Africa by them. If you leave cloud copy off, the file stays on the laptop.

C.K.Software does not transfer your files to its own servers in South Africa or abroad, because it does not receive them.

7. Security

On the devices, the safeguards include a TLS connection between the phone and the laptop, a check of the laptop certificate saved at pairing, a SHA-256 check of the file the laptop wrote, and a limit that refuses non-local senders when no pairing token is set. The phone’s pairing token, when you use one, is not left in ordinary preferences.

These safeguards reduce the chance that a stranger on another network is accepted as your laptop. They do not replace a locked screen, a careful pairing choice, or your own backups. Wi-Fi between your devices is still your network.

8. How long information is kept

Files, the activity log, and pairing details stay on your phone and laptop until you delete them or uninstall the app. Email you send to C.K.Software is kept for as long as needed to deal with the request and for a reasonable record afterwards, then deleted.

9. Your rights, including a deletion request

Where C.K.Software is the responsible party, you may ask whether we hold personal information about you, ask for a record of it, ask for a correction or deletion, or object to processing that the Act allows you to object to. You may also lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator.

To ask for deletion of information C.K.Software holds, email cksoftware920@gmail.com. That information is correspondence you sent us. We may need enough detail to find the message and to be satisfied about who is asking. There is no fee for a straightforward request about your own email. Files copied by the app stay on your phone and laptop, so deleting those files is something you do on those devices.

10. Access to information (PAIA)

The Promotion of Access to Information Act 2 of 2000 gives a requester a route to records of a private body, subject to that Act. The records C.K.Software may hold from this product are emails and other correspondence you send about VanishVault. C.K.Software does not hold the contents of files copied by the app.

Send a request to the information officer at the email above. Describe the record and the contact details we should use to reply. If a request is refused, or there is no response as the Act requires, you may complain to the Information Regulator. The Regulator publishes a PAIA guide at inforegulator.org.za.

11. Information Regulator

You may contact the Information Regulator of South Africa about a POPIA or PAIA complaint:

• Woodmead North Office Park, 54 Maxwell Drive, Woodmead, Johannesburg, 2191
• Telephone 010 023 5200 · toll free 0800 017 160
• General enquiries: enquiries@inforegulator.org.za
• POPIA complaints: POPIAComplaints@inforegulator.org.za
• PAIA complaints: PAIAComplaints@inforegulator.org.za
• Complaints can also be lodged on the Regulator’s eServices portal: inforegulator.org.za/complaints

It helps to raise the matter with C.K.Software first, at the email in section 1, so it can be corrected where we hold the information.

12. Changes

If this notice changes, the new version will be dated and published on this page. The date at the top is the version that applies to the site you are reading.