This Privacy Notice explains how African Horse Sickness handles personal information when you visit africanhorsesickness.co.za, contact us, submit information or interact with our horse health, equestrian sport, racing and betting-related content.

African Horse Sickness is an independent equine publication based in South Africa. We aim to collect only the information reasonably needed to operate the website, respond to readers, protect the site and understand how our content is used.

This notice applies to the website and direct communications with us. It does not govern the privacy practices of bookmakers, gaming platforms, social networks, embedded-content providers or other external websites that may be mentioned or linked from our articles.

Privacy Contact

Questions or requests concerning personal information may be sent to:

Email: [email protected]

Website: africanhorsesickness.co.za

Please use a clear subject line such as “Privacy Request” and explain which message, submission or website interaction your request concerns.

Information You Choose to Send

You may provide personal information when you contact African Horse Sickness by email or through a contact form, if one is made available.

This information may include:

• your name;
• your email address;
• the subject and contents of your message;
• the organisation, stable, event or publication you represent;
• information included in a correction request or story tip;
• photographs, documents or other files you submit;
• technical details required to investigate a website problem;
• any other information you choose to include.

Please avoid sending unnecessary sensitive information. In particular, do not send financial account credentials, betting-platform passwords, complete identity documents, medical records or confidential information about another person unless there is a legitimate reason and you have the right to provide it.

We may use your message to respond, assess a correction, investigate a story, consider submitted material, manage a commercial enquiry or maintain a record of relevant correspondence.

Sending information does not guarantee a reply or publication.

Horse Health Reports and Editorial Submissions

Because African Horse Sickness publishes information about equine disease, care and welfare, readers may contact us about suspected outbreaks, veterinary developments or horse-related incidents.

Information sent to the publication is treated as editorial material unless another purpose is made clear. It may include names, locations, dates, photographs and descriptions of animals or events.

We may use submitted information to:

• assess whether a subject is suitable for coverage;
• verify facts with appropriate sources;
• request clarification from the sender;
• correct or update an existing article;
• preserve an internal record of the editorial decision.

We will not intentionally publish a private individual’s email address, telephone number or other direct contact information without an appropriate reason or permission.

African Horse Sickness is not an emergency reporting authority or veterinary service. Suspected disease outbreaks and urgent animal-health concerns should also be reported to the relevant veterinarian or public authority.

Technical Information Generated During a Visit

When you access africanhorsesickness.co.za, the website, hosting infrastructure and security systems may automatically process limited technical information.

Depending on the website configuration, this may include:

• IP address;
• browser and device type;
• operating system;
• approximate geographic region;
• referring page;
• pages viewed;
• date and time of access;
• general interaction data;
• error, security and server-log information.

This information may be used to deliver pages correctly, maintain security, detect abuse, investigate technical failures and understand which sections of the publication are useful to readers.

We do not use ordinary server or analytics data to identify individual readers unless this is reasonably necessary to investigate fraud, malicious activity, a security incident or a legal obligation.

Cookies and Similar Technologies

Cookies are small files or identifiers used by websites to remember information, support functionality and understand website activity.

African Horse Sickness may use the following categories:

Essential cookies

These support functions such as page delivery, security, traffic management, preference storage and protection against spam or misuse. Some essential technologies may operate automatically because the site cannot function reliably without them.

Preference cookies

These may remember choices such as cookie settings, display preferences or language-related options.

Analytics cookies

If analytics are enabled, they may help us understand aggregate readership patterns, popular articles, traffic sources, device categories and navigation behaviour.

Advertising or affiliate cookies

If the site later displays advertising, sponsored campaigns or tracked commercial links, relevant third parties may use cookies or similar identifiers to measure visits, referrals or campaign performance.

Where consent is required for optional cookies, visitors should be given a practical way to accept, reject or manage them. You can also restrict cookies through your browser, although disabling essential functions may affect how the website works.

Advertising, Sponsorship and Commercial Links

African Horse Sickness may publish sponsored content, advertising or commercial links related to horses, racing, equestrian sport, betting and digital entertainment.

Aviator by SPRIBE is an official sponsor of the project. Sponsorship does not automatically mean that SPRIBE receives information submitted privately to African Horse Sickness.

However, when you interact directly with a sponsor’s advertisement, embedded feature, promotional link or external page, that third party may process information under its own privacy terms.

The site may use referral parameters or similar technology to understand whether a user followed a commercial link. Such tracking may be handled by the advertiser, affiliate platform or destination website rather than directly by African Horse Sickness.

Readers should review the privacy and cookie terms of any external betting, gaming or commercial service before opening an account or providing personal information.

African Horse Sickness does not collect bookmaker passwords, gaming account credentials, deposits, withdrawals or payment-card details through its editorial pages.

Embedded Media and External Platforms

Articles may contain or later include embedded videos, social posts, maps, race widgets or other third-party content.

Embedded content can behave as though you visited the provider’s website directly. The provider may collect device information, place cookies or record your interaction, particularly when you are signed in to an account with that service.

We do not control the data practices of external platforms. Where practical, optional embedded content should not load before any consent required by applicable law has been obtained.

External Links

Our articles may link to veterinary resources, racing organisations, event websites, research institutions, regulators, bookmakers, sponsors and other third-party services.

Following an external link takes you outside africanhorsesickness.co.za. The destination website determines which information it collects and how it uses that information.

A link is provided for context or reader convenience and does not mean that African Horse Sickness controls the linked service’s security, accuracy or privacy practices.

How We Use Personal Information

Depending on the interaction, personal information may be processed to:

• respond to questions and relevant enquiries;
• investigate corrections and content concerns;
• review horse-health reports, news tips and event information;
• assess photographs, documents and contributor submissions;
• manage sponsorship, advertising or partnership enquiries;
• maintain website security and prevent abuse;
• analyse website performance and aggregate readership trends;
• keep appropriate administrative and editorial records;
• meet legal obligations or respond to valid legal requests;
• establish, exercise or defend legal rights.

Where applicable, processing may be based on consent, the steps necessary to respond to your request, legitimate operational or editorial interests, or compliance with a legal obligation.

We do not sell reader contact details as a standalone commercial database.

When Information May Be Shared

Personal information may be shared only where reasonably necessary with parties such as:

• website hosting and technical service providers;
• email and communication providers;
• security, backup and spam-protection services;
• analytics or cookie-management providers;
• professional advisers where appropriate;
• public authorities where disclosure is lawfully required;
• contributors or subject specialists involved in verifying a submitted story, where appropriate.

Service providers may process information only to support the functions for which they are engaged, subject to their agreements and applicable law.

For editorial verification, we aim to avoid disclosing the identity of a source more widely than necessary. However, we cannot promise absolute confidentiality unless a specific arrangement has been agreed in advance.

International Processing

African Horse Sickness is based in South Africa, but the website can be accessed internationally. Some technical or communication providers may process information in other countries.

Privacy standards and legal protections differ between jurisdictions. Where cross-border processing occurs, reasonable steps should be taken to use providers and safeguards appropriate to the type of information involved.

Visitors in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or other jurisdictions may have additional rights under their local laws.

Retention of Information

We retain personal information only for as long as it is reasonably needed for the purpose for which it was collected, to maintain relevant editorial or administrative records, to protect the website, or to meet legal requirements.

Retention periods may vary:

• routine questions may be deleted when no longer useful;
• correction records may be retained to document article changes;
• editorial submissions may be kept while a story is being assessed;
• commercial correspondence may be retained for recordkeeping;
• server and security logs may be stored for a limited operational period;
• material that becomes part of a published article or editorial archive may be retained for longer.

A deletion request may not always require the removal of information that must be retained for legal, security, journalistic, archival or legitimate recordkeeping purposes.

Your Privacy Choices and Rights

Depending on your location and the circumstances, you may be able to request that we:

• confirm whether we hold personal information about you;
• provide access to relevant personal information;
• correct information that is inaccurate or incomplete;
• delete information where there is no lawful or legitimate reason to retain it;
• restrict or object to certain processing;
• withdraw consent where processing depends on consent;
• provide information about the purpose for which your data is used;
• consider a complaint about how your information has been handled.

To make a request, email [email protected] with enough information to identify the relevant communication or record.

We may need to verify your identity before releasing, correcting or deleting personal information. This is intended to prevent information from being disclosed to an unauthorised person.

These rights are subject to applicable law and may be limited in some situations, including where information is needed for legal obligations, freedom of expression, journalism, security or the rights of another person.

South African users may also have the right to raise a concern with the Information Regulator of South Africa.

Security and Its Limits

We use reasonable technical and organisational measures appropriate to a small online publication. These may include hosting security, access controls, software updates, backups and tools intended to detect spam or malicious traffic.

No website, email system or internet transmission can be guaranteed completely secure. Please consider this before sending confidential or sensitive information by ordinary email.

If we become aware of a significant security incident involving personal information, we will assess it and take steps required by the circumstances and applicable law.

Children’s Privacy

African Horse Sickness publishes general information about horses and sport, but betting-related content is intended only for adults who meet the legal age requirements in their location.

The website is not designed to knowingly collect personal information from young children without appropriate involvement from a parent or guardian.

A parent or guardian who believes that a child has submitted personal information may contact us so the matter can be reviewed.

Automated Tools and Editorial Workflows

The publication may use software-assisted tools to support tasks such as spam filtering, website security, transcription, formatting, research organisation or editorial workflow.

Such tools should not replace human judgement on sensitive veterinary reporting, factual corrections or publication decisions.

We do not use ordinary reader messages to make decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects through fully automated processing.

Changes to This Notice

This Privacy Notice may be updated when the website adds new features, changes service providers, introduces comments or newsletters, modifies advertising arrangements or adjusts how reader submissions are handled.

The current version will be published on this page with an updated date. Material changes should be reflected clearly rather than applied silently.