Hosting & Data
Hosting Regions
We only host with reputable providers both locally and internationally, in order to ensure the safety, stability, and uptime of our infrastructure.
Our primary hosting servers are located in South Africa. Within the region, Hetzner is used as our hosting provider. For our global clients, we will, where possible, host in-country with Amazon Web Services.
We endeavour to host our clients within the region or country in which they are residents. Where this is not possible, we ensure that the hosting provider is located in a country with sufficient data protection and security requirements.
Cross Border Transfers
In certain support cases, project requirements, or development efforts, we may need to transfer your data across borders. This may be due to cloud services required or for inter-departmental transfer to assist with a requirement.
We take care to ensure that all our branches operate with the same level of security and diligence when it comes to data security and integrity. Data in transit is encrypted by TLS or by IPSec tunnel between branches. No data is transmitted “in the clear”.
For more details, please see our Privacy Policy.
Change Management
Any changes to our servers or infrastructure follow strict change management processes. Changes to live systems are not implemented without due planning and authorisation. Emergency changes follow a separate process to fast-track implementation and roll-out.
Data Retention on Termination
When you terminate your services with us, we will revoke access to and securely delete all of your live information hosted in our infrastructure. We will, on request and prior to termination, provide you with a copy of your hosted data should you need it.
After your termination, we will retain encrypted backups of your data for a short period of time. After this period, we will enter into a disposal process. During this retention period, your data may be restored should you re-engage our services. Please reach out to us should you require more information on retention periods.
Account information that we need to retain due to legislation shall follow respective industry standards for retention.
Requesting Access to Your Data (PAIA)
As a South African-based company, Smoke CI adheres to the POPIA and PAIA acts and as such you have the right to access the data we may be collecting on you for marketing or data purposes.
To read more or fully understand the extent of the data, how you may go about requesting this data, please fee free to download our PAIA Manual.