Wits FEBE Students' Council

1. Who this notice covers

This notice applies to the Wits Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment Students' Council website and its guided contact assistant. For privacy questions about this website, contact febesc.secretary@students.wits.ac.za.

2. Information you may provide

The assistant may ask for your selected school or council, your relationship to Wits, your name, student number or email address, and the message you want to send. Providing these details is voluntary, but the council may not be able to respond without suitable contact information.

3. What happens inside the chatbot

Your answers are processed temporarily in your browser to prepare an email addressed to the selected council. This website does not submit the answers to a FEBESC database, does not use them for advertising, and does not place them in cookies or browser storage. Reloading or closing the page clears the active conversation.

When you select Open email draft, the information is transferred to your email application. It is not sent until you review the draft and press Send in that application.

4. Purpose and recipients

The information is used only to route and respond to the enquiry you choose to send. A sent message may be processed by your email provider, Wits email systems and the selected FEBESC or school-council mailbox. The receiving council should use it only to handle the enquiry, provide support and maintain necessary operational records.

5. Retention

The website itself does not retain chatbot answers. Once an email is sent, copies may remain in your sent-mail folder, email-provider systems and the receiving council mailbox. Those copies may be retained only as long as reasonably necessary to respond, meet legitimate record-keeping needs, resolve disputes or comply with applicable law and University requirements.

6. Hosting and technical information

The test site is designed for GitHub Pages. GitHub states that a visitor's IP address is logged and stored for security purposes when a GitHub Pages site is visited. The website also loads Font Awesome through cdnjs, so that service may receive ordinary technical request information such as an IP address and browser details. FEBESC does not currently add analytics, advertising trackers or a custom cookie system.

7. Protecting your information

Do not send passwords, banking details, identity-document copies, medical information or other highly sensitive information through the chatbot or ordinary email. If an enquiry requires sensitive documentation, first ask the council for an approved secure channel.

8. Your POPIA rights

South Africa's Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013 establishes minimum requirements for processing personal information. Subject to applicable limitations, you may ask for access to your personal information, request correction or deletion, object to certain processing, or raise a complaint.

Start by contacting the council that received your message or FEBESC at febesc.secretary@students.wits.ac.za. University-held information is also governed by the Wits Privacy Notice. If you believe personal information has been handled unlawfully, you may contact the Information Regulator or email POPIAComplaints@inforegulator.org.za.

9. External links

Links to Instagram, GitHub, application providers and other external websites are governed by their own privacy notices. Review those notices before providing personal information on an external service.

10. Policy updates

This notice may be updated when the website, hosting arrangement or contact process changes. The effective date above will be updated when material changes are made.