Privacy Policy

WorkScout (workscout.co.za) is a South African job board. This policy explains what personal information we collect, why we collect it, who we share it with and what your rights are under the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA). For privacy questions, email support@workscout.co.za.

The short version

• You can search and read jobs without an account and without giving us any personal information.
• We do not receive job applications. When you click Apply, you go to the employer’s own website or email address, and the employer’s privacy policy applies.
• We collect what you choose to send us (for example through our contact form) and basic information about how the site is used.
• We show Google ads, which use cookies. You can turn off personalised ads (see “Cookies” below).
• We do not sell your personal information.

Information you give us

• Contact form: your name, email address, the topic, a job link if you add one, and your message. We save your message so we can reply and follow up.
• Employer enquiries: your name, company, email address, phone number (optional), number of vacancies and your message. If you advertise with us, we also keep your billing details, invoices and payment records.
• Blog comments and company reviews: your name, email address, website (optional), your comment or review and any star rating. Your name, review and rating are shown publicly; your email address is not. To help detect spam, WordPress also stores the IP address and browser details sent with a comment.
• Emails: anything you send to our email addresses.

Please do not send us your CV, ID number or banking details through our forms. We do not need them.

Information collected automatically

• Site statistics: we count page visits, the pages viewed and the country visitors come from. IP addresses are anonymised and hashed before they are stored, so we do not keep your full IP address.
• Job statistics: for each job we count views, appearances in search results and clicks on the Apply button. These are stored as daily totals per job. Your browser’s local storage is used so that a repeat visit is not counted twice.
• Short links: when you click one of our short links (for example workscout.co.za/7cir), we record the click, including technical details such as your IP address, browser and the page you came from, so we can count clicks.
• Spam protection: to limit repeated form submissions, we count submissions per visitor for one hour using a scrambled (hashed) version of your IP address. The count is deleted after an hour.
• Server logs: like most websites, our hosting provider’s servers keep technical logs, such as IP addresses and the pages requested, to keep the site running and secure.

Cookies and similar technologies

Cookies are small files a website stores in your browser. Local storage works in a similar way. WorkScout uses them as follows:

• Advertising (Google AdSense): we show ads from Google to help keep WorkScout free. Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on your previous visits to this website and other websites. Google’s use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to you based on those visits. You can opt out of personalised advertising in Google’s Ads Settings, or opt out of some third-party vendors’ cookies at aboutads.info/choices. Read how Google uses information from sites that use its services.
• Job statistics: local storage entries that stop a repeat view of the same job being counted twice.
• Comments: if you tick the box when commenting, a cookie remembers your name, email and website for your next comment.
• Site administration: login cookies are used only by the WorkScout team when signed in.

You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings. The site will still work, but ads may be less relevant.

Who receives information

• Google: for ads (AdSense) and for the fonts used on the site (Google Fonts). Your browser connects to Google’s servers, which receive your IP address.
• Other services that load parts of our pages: some scripts and images come from other providers (code.jquery.com, Unsplash, Flaticon and WordPress.org). Your browser connects to them and they receive your IP address.
• Gravatar: when comments are shown, a scrambled (hashed) version of a commenter’s email address may be sent to the Gravatar service to check for a profile picture.
• Zoho Invoice: employers’ billing details, to create and send invoices.
• Our hosting and email provider: stores the website, our email and the messages you send us.
• Websites you visit from WorkScout: employers’ websites, our affiliate partners, Selar (where our GET HIRED guide is sold), WhatsApp and social networks have their own privacy policies. Affiliate partners may use cookies to record that you came from WorkScout.

We may also disclose information if the law requires it. Some of these providers, including Google, process information outside South Africa. We use them only for the purposes described in this policy.

Why we use your information

• To reply to your messages and help with your request.
• To handle advertising enquiries, send invoices, publish adverts and keep payment records.
• To publish and moderate comments and company reviews.
• To run, protect and improve the website, and to understand which jobs and pages are useful.
• To show ads that help keep WorkScout free for job seekers.
• To meet our legal, accounting and tax obligations.

How long we keep it

• Messages and enquiries: as long as we need them to deal with your request and for our records.
• Invoices and payment records: as long as accounting and tax law requires.
• Comments and reviews: while they are published, or until you ask us to remove them.
• Statistics: kept as totals that do not identify you.
• Spam-protection counts: one hour.

Keeping your information safe

We take reasonable steps to protect your information, including encrypted connections (HTTPS) on the whole site and limiting access to the WorkScout team. No website can be completely secure, so please do not send sensitive information such as ID or banking details through our forms.

Your rights

Under POPIA you may ask us to:

• tell you what personal information we hold about you;
• correct information that is wrong or out of date;
• delete your information, where we are not required to keep it;
• stop using your information for a particular purpose, where you have the right to object.

Email support@workscout.co.za with the subject “Privacy request”. We may need to confirm your identity before we act on a request.

If you are unhappy with how we handled your information, please tell us first so we can try to fix it. You also have the right to complain to the Information Regulator of South Africa: inforegulator.org.za, enquiries@inforegulator.org.za, 010 023 5200.

A note for job seekers

WorkScout is not a recruitment agency. When you apply for a job, you share your information with the employer, not with us. A real employer should never ask you to pay to apply, to be interviewed or to get a job. If a listing asks for money, please tell us.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy when our website or services change. The latest version is always on this page. Last updated: 20 October 2026.