Legal

Privacy Policy

Last updated 16 October 2026 · Terms & Conditions

This policy explains what personal information Haute Boutique Patisserie (“we”, “us”, “HAUTE”) collects when you use haute-cakes.co.za, why we collect it, who we share it with, and the rights you have over it under South Africa's Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013 (POPIA). We are the responsible party for the personal information described below.

Haute Boutique Patisserie
Shop 11 & 12, Leaping Frog Shopping Centre
Cnr Winnie Mandela Drive & Mulbarton Rd, Lone Hill, 2191
[email protected]

The information we collect

We only collect what a given part of the site actually needs to work. Here's exactly what that is, organised the way you'd actually encounter it moving through the site:

Just browsing

You can browse the full menu, view individual dessert pages, and build up a cart without creating an account or giving us any personal information at all. Your cart is stored only in your own browser (see “Cookies & local storage” below) — we don't know it exists until you check out. We use Google Analytics to see, in aggregate, how the site is used (see “Site analytics” below), with its advertising features switched off. We don't run Meta Pixel or any advertising tracker.

Ordering as a guest

You don't need an account to order. At checkout we ask for your full name, email address, and mobile number, and keep them with your order. We use them only to fulfil it: your email receives your order confirmation, receipt and collection QR code (or delivery code), and your mobile lets us — or, for a delivery, the courier — reach you about that order. Your confirmation email and confirmation page contain a private link to your order, which works only for whoever holds it; please don't share it.

Creating an account (HAUTE Rewards)

An account is optional for ordering and for requesting a table, but needed to earn and use loyalty, and to use a few other features below. You can create one at any time, including straight after paying for an order. Signing up collects your name, email address, phone number, and a password — your password is never stored in readable form, only as a one-way bcrypt hash we can verify against but never reverse. You can also sign in with Google, in which case we receive your name and email address from Google and no password is stored. We verify your email address before the account can be used, so we know it's genuinely yours.

Once your email address is verified, any earlier orders you placed as a guest with that same email address are moved into your account automatically, together with the loyalty they earned. This only ever happens for a verified address, so nobody can see your orders by signing up with your email.

Placing an order

When you check out, we record what you ordered, the collection date and time slot you chose, whether each item was collected the same day or Pre-Ordered, your order total, and — once payment succeeds — a record that it was paid and, after you collect it in-store, when it was collected. If your cart spanned a same-day collection and a Pre-Order, checkout creates two separate order records sharing one payment, each with its own collection date and (for a collected order) QR code. If you have an account, we also record any loyalty earned or redeemed against each order.

Choosing delivery

If you choose delivery for any part of your order, we collect the delivery address and its coordinates, the building type and any unit/floor/business name or courier instructions you provide, and — before it can be selected — a record that you ticked the delivery condition acknowledgement, and when. This information, along with your name and phone number, is passed to Uber Direct, the courier partner who actually fulfils delivery on our behalf, so a courier can be dispatched to collect your order from us and deliver it to you. See “Who we share it with” below for how that works, and our Terms & Conditions for how delivery itself works.

Paying online

All online card payments are processed directly by Yoco, our payment gateway. Your card number, expiry date, and CVV are entered on Yoco's own secure payment page and never pass through or get stored on our servers — we only ever receive confirmation that a specific order was paid, and a reference we can look it up by.

“Notify Me” restock alerts

If you ask to be notified when a sold-out product is back, we link that request to your account and email you once, the moment it's back in stock. We don't use this list for anything else, and it never repeats — you'd need to ask again for a future restock.

Book A Table

A table booking request can be made as a guest or with your account. It records your name, email address and mobile number (taken from your account if you're signed in), and the date, time, party size, seating area, notes and any deposit information for that booking, so our team can confirm or decline it and contact you about it.

Live chat

Starting a conversation in the chat widget collects your name, email, and phone number (or, if you're logged in, we use the details already on your account instead of asking again), plus the messages you send. To generate helpful automated replies, your messages may be processed by OpenAI, our AI service provider — a member of staff can always take over the conversation directly. We keep chat conversations on file permanently as a record of what was discussed, the same way a business would keep any other customer correspondence. If you use the chat while browsing our website or app, the conversation is linked to the same random visit identifier used by our own analytics (see “Site analytics” below), so our team can see which pages you were looking at and help you more easily.

Likes and comments on News and Inspirations

Liking or commenting requires an account. We record which articles you like and the comments you post, linked to your account. Comments are reviewed by our team before they appear; once approved, a comment is shown publicly with your first name only — never your surname, email address, phone number or photo. Please don't include personal details in a comment. You can ask us to remove a comment at any time.

Product reviews

Once your order has been collected or delivered, you can rate each product and add an optional comment — from your order page, whether you have an account or ordered as a guest. We record your ratings and comments against that order. Reviews are checked by our team before they appear; once approved, a review is shown publicly on that product's page with your first name only — never your surname, email address or phone number — and its rating may be included in the product information we give search engines such as Google. Please don't include personal details in a review. You can ask us to remove your review at any time, and if you delete your account your reviews stay but no longer show your name.

Contact form

The Contact Us form collects your name, email, the topic you selected, and your message, and is protected by Cloudflare Turnstile (a privacy-respecting alternative to reCAPTCHA that doesn't track you across other sites) to keep spam submissions out.

Careers / speculative applications

Applying via the Careers page collects your name, email, phone number, and the CV file you upload. Your CV is never made public or accessible by URL — it's only ever readable by staff reviewing applications, and it's used solely to consider you for a role with us.

Order reviews

If you leave a rating or comment after collecting an order, it's kept internally to help us improve — we don't publish reviews on the site.

HAUTE staff (employees only)

This section applies only to HAUTE employees whose account has been set up as a staff account by us. The Staff and HR areas of the website and the app are limited to those staff user IDs — customers and visitors can't open them, and none of the information below is collected from customers.

For staff we keep the employment records needed to run the team and pay everyone correctly:

Clock in / clock out location — your device's precise location is read only at the moment you press Clock In or Clock Out (never in the background), to confirm you're at the shop. We keep the position, its accuracy and the distance from the shop with that clock-in or clock-out, and note refused attempts (for example a fake-location app being switched on).
Attendance and schedule — clock-in and clock-out times, hours worked, your weekly schedule and start time, late arrivals or early departures, leave and absences, and notes made by HR.
Employment and identity details — your full name, position, employment type, start date, South African ID number and an emergency contact.
Pay — payslips and the figures on them (salary or wages, commission, tips, UIF and other deductions, recoveries and staff purchases), and documents we share with you.
Expense claims — the amount, description and photos of receipts you submit for a reimbursement, and whether it was approved and paid.

Only you and HAUTE's HR administrators (the owner and managers we appoint) can see your records; HR notes are visible to HR administrators only. We use this information solely to manage employment — attendance, scheduling, leave, payroll and reimbursements — and never for marketing. It isn't sold or shared with anyone except where the law requires it (for example SARS or the Department of Employment and Labour), and it's kept for as long as labour and tax law require after your employment ends. You can ask to see or correct your records at any time under POPIA, as set out below.

How we use your information

To create and secure your account, and verify it's really you (email verification, password reset).
To take, confirm, and prepare your Click & Collect order or table booking.
To process payment through Yoco and confirm it back to you.
To send order, account, and booking-related emails (via our email provider, Zoho Mail) and, where you've opted in, our newsletter or competition updates.
To respond to chat messages, contact form submissions, and job applications.
To run our loyalty programme and calculate what you've earned or can redeem.
To keep the records South African tax and consumer-protection law require us to keep.

We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal information to anyone, for any reason.

Who we share it with

We use a small number of service providers (“operators” under POPIA) to actually run the site — each only receives what it needs to do its specific job, and none of them are permitted to use your information for their own purposes:

Yoco — processes online card payments; handles your card details directly, we never see or store them.
Uber Direct — fulfils delivery on our behalf when you choose it, receiving your name, phone number, and delivery address to dispatch and complete the courier delivery.
Zoho Mail — delivers our transactional and marketing emails on our behalf.
OpenAI — generates automated replies in live chat from the message text you send.
Cloudflare — provides the Turnstile spam-check on our contact form, the secure connection the whole site runs over, and cookie-free visit statistics (Cloudflare Web Analytics).
Google (Sign-In) — only if you choose “Sign in with Google”: Google confirms who you are and shares your name and email address with us. We never receive your Google password.
Google (Maps/Places) — when you enter a delivery address, that address text is sent to Google to look up and confirm a real, deliverable location.
Google (Firebase Cloud Messaging) — if you use our Android app and allow notifications, a device identifier is registered with Google's push notification service so we can deliver order and account updates to your device.
Google (Analytics) — measures how the website and our Android app are used (pages and screens viewed, approximate location, device type, how you found us) so we can improve them. Advertising features, Google signals and the app's advertising ID are switched off, and it isn't linked to your name or account.
Google (Firebase Crashlytics) — if you use our Android app, technical crash reports (what the app was doing when it crashed, device model and OS version) are sent to Google so we can find and fix bugs. These reports aren't linked to your name or account.

We may also disclose personal information where required by law, or to protect our rights, staff, or customers.

Cookies & local storage

We don't use advertising cookies. Google Analytics sets its own first-party cookies (named _ga…) to tell one visit from the next — these are used only for our site statistics, never for advertising. Apart from that, the site stores a small amount of information directly in your browser (technically localStorage, not a cookie) purely to make the site work: your cart contents, your login session token (so you stay logged in between visits), and — if you use live chat without an account — an anonymous chat session identifier. None of this is readable by us or anyone else until it's actually sent to our server as part of using the feature it belongs to, and none of it is used to track you across other websites.

Site analytics

We use Google Analytics to understand, in aggregate, how visitors use the website and our Android app — which pages and screens are viewed, roughly where visitors are, what device they use, and how they found us. Google processes this on our behalf; IP addresses are not stored by Google Analytics, advertising features and Google signals are switched off (the app doesn't collect your device's advertising ID), and it isn't linked to your name or account. On the website you can opt out with Google's browser add-on at tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

We also run our own first-party analytics, which is never shared with or sold to anyone. For each visit, we record a randomly-generated visitor/session identifier, which pages were viewed and for how long, your approximate country (looked up from your IP address, which is itself kept only briefly for this purpose), a general device type (mobile/desktop), which site referred you here, and the steps you take in the shop — such as adding or removing items, opening the cart, checking whether we deliver to your area (only the suburb and distance are kept, never your street address), and each step of checkout you reach. If you're logged in, this is linked to your account so we can build the “you might also like” suggestions on your cart and see where shopping gets stuck. This exists purely so we can understand real usage of our own site (what's popular, what isn't working) — never to build an advertising profile or follow you elsewhere.

How long we keep it, and deleting your account

We keep order, payment, and booking records for as long as South African tax and consumer law requires. Chat conversations are kept on file permanently as a correspondence record. Career applications are kept only for as long as reasonably needed to consider you for a role, and removed on request.

You can delete your account and its personal information yourself, at any time, from My Account on the website or the Account screen in our Android app — look for “Delete My Account”. This takes effect immediately: your name, email, phone number, saved addresses, and any loyalty balance are permanently removed (a loyalty balance is forfeited and can't be restored), and every device you're logged into is signed out. We retain only what we're legally required to keep, such as historical order records for tax purposes, which are no longer linked to your identifying details. You can also email [email protected] to request the same thing if you'd rather not do it yourself, or can't log in.

Your rights under POPIA

You have the right to:

Ask us what personal information we hold about you, and get a copy of it.
Ask us to correct information that's wrong or out of date.
Delete your account and personal information yourself at any time (see “How long we keep it, and deleting your account” above), subject to what we're legally required to keep.
Withdraw consent for marketing (newsletter/competition) emails at any time, without affecting anything else on your account.
Object to how we process your information, or lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator (South Africa) if you believe we've handled it improperly.

To exercise any of these, email [email protected]. The Information Regulator can be reached at inforegulator.org.za.

Keeping your information secure

Passwords are stored as one-way bcrypt hashes, never in plain text. Login sessions use random, server-side revocable tokens, not anything that could be guessed or reused. Every uploaded file (a CV, a chat image) is verified as a genuine file of the type it claims to be before we store it. The whole site runs over an encrypted (HTTPS) connection. No online system is ever 100% risk-free, but this is the same standard of care we'd want applied to our own information.

Children

This site isn't directed at children, and accounts, ordering, and payment are intended for use by adults. If you believe a child has given us personal information without a parent or guardian's consent, please contact us and we'll remove it.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as the site changes. The “Last updated” date at the top always reflects the current version — we won't make a material change without updating that date.

Contact us

Questions about this policy or your personal information can be sent to [email protected].