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Non-Payment and Data Deletion Policy – Fairhost (Pty) Ltd.
Last Updated: 30 April 2025
Fairhost (Pty) Ltd. (“Fairhost”) is committed to efficient resource management and compliance with data protection laws. This policy defines the treatment of non-paying customers and the timeline for data retention and deletion. By removing obsolete account data after a defined grace period, Fairhost optimizes server utilization and allocates resources to active, paying customers. It also ensures adherence to legal requirements under South Africa’s Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA).
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Non-Payment for Services
If a client has overdue invoices for active products or services, the account will be considered non-paying. Even if the account is suspended, billing will continue for up to 4 months.
Reason for Continued Billing: Suspended accounts still consume server resources such as storage, cPanel licenses, bandwidth, and we incur costs for maintaining these resources.
Data Retention During Non-Payment
Data Retention: During the 4-month non-payment period, Fairhost will retain your account data to ensure compliance and provide clients with the opportunity to settle any outstanding balances.
Data Loss: After the 4-month period, if the outstanding balance is not settled, Fairhost will permanently delete all data associated with the non-paying account. This includes, but is not limited to, websites, databases, emails, backups, and any other data stored on our servers.
Cancellation and Data Loss
Cancel at Any Time: Clients can cancel their services at any time. However, if cancellation occurs and the account remains unpaid for 4 months, all data will be permanently lost upon deletion, and there will be no possibility of recovery.
Settlement of Balance: Clients wishing to avoid data loss must settle their outstanding balance within the 4-month period. If the debt is settled before the 4 months elapse, the account will be reactivated, and data will be retained.
Notification of Pending Data Deletion
Clients will be notified 15 to 30 days before the deletion of their data, providing an opportunity to resolve the outstanding balance or cancel the account.
Compliance
Client Information Retention: In accordance with South African law and for compliance purposes, client information (such as billing and contact details) may be retained beyond the 4-month period. This ensures that Fairhost complies with legal and regulatory data retention requirements.
Server Data Deletion: However, all server data (such as websites, databases, emails, backups, and other hosted content) will be permanently erased after 4 months of non-payment. Once deleted, the server data is irrecoverable.