Privacy

Readers

• Your email address, if you sign in, take the daily brief or subscribe. We use it to sign you in, to send the brief you asked for, and to send notices about your account, trial or subscription.
• What you follow, if you set up alerts, so we can tell you when something changes.
• How many articles you have read this month in each title, so the free allowance works. Without an account this is kept only in a cookie on your device; with an account we also keep it with your account.
• Two small cookies: one keeps you signed in, the other counts free articles. We do not use advertising cookies and we do not sell or rent your data.
• Subscription and invoice records: your plan, dates, invoices and payments. Card details are handled by our payment provider and never stored by us.
• Messages you send us, such as error reports, enquiries and letters, so we can answer them.

Sponsors

Your company’s name, website, category and billing details, the name and work email of the person who registered, your sponsor messages and your bookings and invoices. We use them to run and invoice your sponsorship and to keep your message out of any brief that reports on your company. The company name, website and week of every sponsorship that runs are published on our ownership and interests page.

Emails

We send the daily brief only after you confirm your address. After you join we may send a short welcome series and, from time to time, a note about what the publication offers. Every email has a one-click unsubscribe, and unsubscribing from one kind of email does not stop notices you need about a subscription you pay for.

Your choices and the consequences of not providing information

• Your email address: providing it is voluntary, but if you choose not to, you cannot receive the daily brief by email, create an account or subscribe.
• Subscription and billing details: necessary for a paid subscription; without them we cannot give you paid access.
• Sponsor information: necessary to perform the sponsorship agreement; if you do not provide it, we cannot offer sponsorship services.
• Spontaneous communications (enquiries, letters): providing this information is entirely voluntary.

We do not use automated decision-making (including profiling) that produces legal effects concerning you or similarly significantly affects you.

Legal bases for processing (for EU and UK residents)

Under the GDPR and UK GDPR we must tell you the legal ground we rely on for each processing purpose:

• Sending the daily brief and marketing emails: your consent.
• Providing subscription services (including account management, billing, access): performance of a contract.
• Recording free article count: our legitimate interest (to operate our free-vs-paid model fairly).
• Storing invoices and payment records: legal obligation (tax and company law).
• Sponsorship management: performance of a contract.
• Publishing sponsorship details (company name and week): legitimate interest (editorial transparency).
• Responding to your enquiries and improving our service: legitimate interest.

You can object to processing based on legitimate interest, or withdraw your consent, at any time as described below.

Who else sees it

Only the companies that help us run the service: our email delivery, hosting and billing providers, and our payment provider, each only for that purpose. We share data with authorities only where the law requires it.

Where your information is kept, and transfers outside South Africa

Our hosting provider, Contabo GmbH (Germany), keeps our servers in its data centre in Lauterbourg, France, in the European Union. Our email and billing run on our own servers there. When card payments go live, payment details are handled by our payment provider. This means your personal information is transferred from South Africa to the European Union. Where that happens, we ensure your personal information is protected: the European Union’s GDPR gives protection comparable to POPIA, and we also bind our providers by contract to protect it. The transfer is necessary for the performance of our contract with you (or, for marketing, is based on your consent). For further details, please contact us.

How long we keep it

• Your account and reading data: until you close your account.
• Invoices and payment records: for as long as tax and company law requires, usually seven years.
• Sponsor sign-ups that are never confirmed: deleted after 30 days.
• Sponsor contact details and messages: erased when the sponsor account is closed; invoices and the public record of what ran are kept.

Closing your account and your rights

You can close your reader account yourself from your account page. That stops every email from us, deletes what you follow and your reading history, and erases your address from our reader records. If you pay for a subscription, cancel it first; you can close the account once it ends. Sponsors can close their account from their sponsor page.

Where we rely on your consent to process your personal information (for instance, to send you marketing emails), you may withdraw that consent at any time. To do so, use the unsubscribe link in any email or contact us. Withdrawing consent does not affect the lawfulness of processing we carried out before you withdrew it.

You can also ask us for a copy of your data, to correct it, to delete it or to stop using it, or object to how we use it. Write to subscriptions@futuresystemsreview.com; we answer within 30 days. You can complain to South Africa’s Information Regulator, or, if you live in the European Union or the United Kingdom, to the data protection authority where you live.

Changes and contact

If we change this notice we will post the new version here, and tell subscribers and sponsors by email about any important change. Questions: subscriptions@futuresystemsreview.com. Our Information Officer under POPIA, Wendy Morency, can be reached at subscriptions@futuresystemsreview.com. We have not appointed a separate data protection officer. Abraxas Technologies (Pty) Ltd, 50 Long St, Cape Town City Centre, Cape Town, 8000, South Africa.

Last updated 21 October 2026.