Privacy Policy

Last updated: 8 October 2026

1. Who we are

Circulo ("we", "us") provides AI phone receptionists for South African businesses. We are based in Cape Town, South Africa. For anything about this policy or your personal information, contact our Information Officer at hello@circulo.co.za.

This policy explains how we handle personal information under the Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013 (POPIA).

2. Information we collect

• Website forms: your name, business name, email, phone numbers, address and any details you choose to give us about your business.
• Calls answered by Circulo: the caller's phone number, the audio of the call, a written transcript and an AI-generated summary (for example name, location and what the caller needs). This applies to calls to our demo line (021 879 6472) and to our clients' lines.
• Messages: if you email us or message us on WhatsApp, the content of those messages and your contact details.
• Basic technical data: our hosting provider may log IP addresses and browser information for security. We do not use advertising or tracking cookies.

3. How we use it

• To answer calls and pass the caller's message, booking or enquiry on to the business they called.
• To reply to you, set up your pilot or service, and support you as a client.
• To improve call quality (for example, reviewing calls where the AI misunderstood a caller).
• To meet legal, tax and accounting obligations.

We only send you marketing messages if you have agreed to receive them, and you can opt out at any time. We never sell personal information.

4. Calls to our clients' businesses

When Circulo answers a call for one of our clients, that business decides why the call information is collected and is the "responsible party" under POPIA. We process it on their behalf as an "operator", only to provide our service to them. If you called a business that uses Circulo and have a question about your information, you can contact that business or us.

5. Service providers and cross-border transfers

We use trusted providers to run the service. Some of them process information outside South Africa:

• Telnyx (telephone network), LiveKit (call connection and recordings), Deepgram (speech-to-text) and Google Cloud (AI language and voice models, and our servers in Johannesburg).
• Cloudflare (website hosting and email forwarding), Brevo (sending email) and Meta (WhatsApp messages).

Where information leaves South Africa, we rely on providers bound by data-protection terms that give protection comparable to POPIA, as section 72 requires.

6. How long we keep it

We keep call transcripts, summaries and recordings for as long as our client's service needs them, and for no more than 12 months unless the client asks us to keep them longer or the law requires it. Website enquiries are kept for as long as needed to deal with them and any resulting client relationship. We then delete or anonymise the information.

7. Security

Information is stored with reputable cloud providers that encrypt data at rest and in transit. Access is limited to people who need it to run the service.

8. Your rights

Under POPIA you may ask us what personal information we hold about you, ask us to correct or delete it, object to its processing, and withdraw consent to direct marketing. Email hello@circulo.co.za and we will respond within a reasonable time.

If you are unhappy with how we handled your information, you may complain to the Information Regulator of South Africa: inforegulator.org.za.

9. Changes

We may update this policy. The latest version will always be on this page, with the date it was last updated.