PAIA manual

The PAIA Guide

The Information Regulator publishes a Guide on how to use PAIA (section 10). Obtain it from inforegulator.org.za/paia-guidelines, telephone 010 023 5200, or e-mail enquiries@inforegulator.org.za.

How to request a record

Use Form 2 of the PAIA Regulations (Request for access to record). Send it to hello@tariffguard.co.za or to the physical address under Information Officer. Say which record you want, in which form, and how we should reach you. We will say whether we hold it. The request fee is the amount prescribed in the PAIA Regulations as published by the Minister from time to time. There is no fee for a confirmation that we do not hold municipal bills.

Remedies

If we refuse a request or do not respond, you may complain to the Information Regulator or apply to court as PAIA allows.

Records we hold

• Municipal bills attached on this site stay in the visitor’s browser. TariffGuard does not hold a copy and has none to disclose.
• Payment references we issue (amount, plan, TG- reference, date) if a payment completed. Card numbers sit with PayFast. Merchant transaction records accessible through PayFast remain records under our control for PAIA purposes — write to us first; we will retrieve what we can from the merchant portal.
• E-mails sent to hello@tariffguard.co.za, kept for 24 months unless a complaint or legal hold requires longer, then deleted on request or at the end of that period.
• This website, the tariff packs (including source citations and validation notes), and the terms, privacy and PAIA pages.
• POPIA documents kept on the Information Officer’s machine: this privacy notice, the PAIA manual, and the personal information impact assessment dated 2026 (TariffGuard-PIIA-2026). These are not published in full.
• Operator and vendor records: PayFast merchant terms, Vercel hosting terms, and notes of the public CDNs used for on-device OCR (jsDelivr and tessdata.projectnaptha.com).
• Security and incident notes, if any incident is recorded.
• Complaints and data-subject requests, and our replies.
• Accounting, tax and payment records for the sole proprietorship.

A request does not mean every record is disclosed. Grounds of refusal in PAIA still apply (including commercially confidential operator contracts and documents that would unreasonably disclose personal information of a third party).

Data subjects

Visitors who attach a municipal PDF on this device; people who pay for a report; people who write to hello@tariffguard.co.za; and, where a bill still prints a prior occupant, that person as named on the customer’s own current account. We do not invite uploads of someone else’s account.

Information processed

Described in the privacy notice: bill fields already printed on an attached PDF (processed in the browser), payment references, technical logs at the host, and the content of e-mails you send.

Categories available without a request

The home page, fee list, coverage table, terms, privacy notice, this manual, and the fictional sample report.

Applicable legislation

PAIA 2 of 2000; POPIA 4 of 2013; Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008; Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002; Municipal Systems Act 32 of 2000 (for the dispute template only).

Recipients and transborder

PayFast (South Africa; may process internationally under its policy). Vercel (United States) for website hosting. jsDelivr and tessdata.projectnaptha.com for on-device OCR library and language files. The e-mail host for hello@tariffguard.co.za. Grok-hosted preview URLs may load an xAI platform script; www.tariffguard.co.za does not. Municipal websites when a published tariff page is fetched. See the privacy notice.

Security

Bills are not stored on a TariffGuard server. The site is served over HTTPS. Payment is on PayFast’s page. The working file in the browser is discarded the next time the site is opened after seven days, or on Start over.

Information Officer

Ryan de Beer, sole proprietor trading as TariffGuard, 389 Cape Rd, Cotswold, Gqeberha 6045. Telephone 078 245 0950. E-mail hello@tariffguard.co.za. Website www.tariffguard.co.za. The Information Officer is Ryan de Beer, registered with the Information Regulator (organisation TARIFFGUARD, registration number 2026-066531, private organisation — sole proprietorship). Confirm it on the eServices portal at eservices.inforegulator.org.za.

Availability and updates

This manual is available at www.tariffguard.co.za/paia, and on request by e-mail or at the physical address above, at no charge. It is reviewed when the service, the operators, or the law changes, and at least once a year.