Privacy Policy

Effective Date: 23 June 2025

Investor Mail democratises finance and investment news, insight and analysis targeted to the retail investors. We believe in the power of knowledge, and that financial knowledge shouldn’t depend on how much you earn, or where you live.

We hold true to our values of impact, trust, integrity and innovation. Central to this mission is our commitment to upholding the highest standards of data protection for our customers.

This Privacy Policy applies to web applications which link to this policy and are published by Investor Mail (“Platforms”). 

If you wish to amend any of the personal information that we hold about you, or update your marketing preferences, you can do so at any time through your account.

If you have any queries about how we use your personal information, please contact our Data Protection Officer at privacy.officer@investormail.co.bw.

Information we collect

This section details the information we may collect about you. We explain why, and how, we use it in later sections.

Account information

If you decide to create an account or enquire about one of our products or services, we’ll ask you to provide us with some specific information, for example:

• Basic personal details – such as name, title and age range
• Personal contact details – such as, region, country , city and email address;
• Employment Status – such as student, unemployed or self-employed, profession etc
• Log in details – such as username and password;

We may also use your account information, such as your title, name and country, to infer your gender.

Additional information

On occasion, we will ask you to voluntarily provide additional information, for example:

• Your opinion of our products and services;
• Your preferences, including newsletters or Investor Mail topics; 
• Your investment details if you use our platform to track your holdings;
• Information about your role, area of study, and areas of interest to help us personalise your Investor Mail experience;

Information we obtain through cookies and similar tools

We use cookies (and similar technologies) and analytics tools across our Platforms to collect information about you. This information can be used to improve the performance of the site, make advertising more relevant and enhance your user experience. We provide detailed information about cookies and similar technologies within our Cookie Policy; examples include:

• Your location – we use cookies to display the version of the site that is most relevant to your location. For example, if you log in to InvestorMail.co.bw from Africa, you will be shown a Botswana version of the site.
• Your usage – we use cookies to understand how our customers use our Platforms and interact with our communications and journalism. For example, we use technology on our Platforms which records user movements, including page scrolling, clicks and text entered. (It does not record payment details.) This helps us to identify usability issues and improve the assistance we can provide to users and is also used for aggregated and statistical reporting purposes.
• Your device – we use cookies to understand what type of device you are using to show you the best version of the site.
• Your engagement with advertisements – we use cookies to understand what advertisements you have been shown, or clicked on, to bill our advertising partners, and to present you with advertisements that are more relevant to you.

If you wish to manage your cookies, please follow the instructions on our Manage Cookies page.

Lawful basis for processing

We only process personal information where we have a lawful basis for doing so, such as the following:

• Legitimate business purposes
  This is where we have a legitimate interest, as a business, to process personal information. For example, where we are aware of copyright infringements on our Site, it is in our legitimate interests as a business to identify those responsible. We take due care to balance our interests against your right to privacy.
• Contractual necessity
  This is where we have to process personal information to meet our contractual obligations. For example, if you are a subscriber, we would need to process your delivery address to fulfil your subscription.
• Legal obligation
  This is where we have to process personal information in order to comply with the law. For example, we process and retain customer invoice information to comply with financial regulations.

We may also rely on relevant exemptions under the GDPR to the requirement to identify a lawful basis for processing.

How we use your personal information

We collect personal information for the following main reasons:

1. To provide our service
   We require some of your basic personal information so our services work as you would expect, for example, delivering the services to your correct address, providing access to our digital content, notifying you of changes to our services and dealing with customer services queries.
2. To maintain performance and improve our products and services
   In order to provide you with the best possible user experience and value, we need to make sure that our products and services work as they should. Using personal information helps us understand how our readers experience our Platforms and services, so we can make improvements. This includes analysing onsite data to test new and existing events, products and developments for Investor Mail; contacting customers with market research surveys or for telephone and video interviews; and hosting subscriber focus groups. We may link the answers you provide with other data we hold about you, for example, your account information and usage data about your use of our Platforms. 
3. To bill our customers
   We, along with our authorised payments processors, securely process your payment information to take payments, give refunds and to detect and prevent fraudulent activity. We will also update your payment information in the event that a payment is unsuccessful. You can manage your payment information at any time by contacting customer services. If your subscription is provided under a group subscription or trial, we will report information about your activity on our Site(s) for the purposes of billing.
4. To monitor compliance with our policies and terms
   We monitor for breaches of our terms and conditions and copyright policies. For example, we reserve the right to inform the subscription holder if, through use of a group subscription, you are using our content in breach of the terms and conditions or copyright policies of our Platforms. We also monitor activity on our Platforms to detect and prevent invalid or fraudulent traffic.
5. To personalise our products and services
   We improve your experience of our products and services by personalising parts of our Platforms and apps with the information you give us and what we learn about you. This includes showing you articles you may be interested in and recommending emails you may wish to sign up to. Where our Platforms have such functionality, you can manage elements of personalisation in your account.
6. To communicate product changes and offers
   We want you to get the most out of our products and services, including showcasing our latest content and newsletters. We will contact you with carefully-curated Investor Mail offers and promotions, exclusive event invitations and feature announcements. For example, if there are no updates on topics you follow in Investor Mail, we will send you articles on other topics that we think you might be interested in. You are able to change your preferences at any time through your account or by contacting customer services.
   We also personalise our communications for strategic purposes.
7. For the purpose of advertising
   We rely on advertising revenue in part to support our award-winning journalism. We need to process your information to understand the effectiveness of the advertising we serve to you and others, and to deliver relevant personalised advertising. We use the information you give us about your interest, the information we collect about you, and the information we infer, to serve you with the most appropriate advertisements.
   You can manage your advertising settings for the Platforms that carry out this activity in your account. If you do decide to turn off personalised advertisements or advertisements tailored to you, you will still see the same number of advertisements but they may be less relevant to you. You may continue to see advertisements that are targeted to you based on other non-personal information, for example, the article that you are reading.
8. For the purpose of marketing 
   We use your personal information to show you offers and promotions for Investor Mail subscriptions and events. For example, we may send you emails or show you adverts on our website or on other third-party web platforms; where we do this, we may also use information to monitor how our adverts perform.
9. To build directories – Our website process personal information to create databases and directories. These directories provide key business insights and profiles to those that have licensed access.
   
   
10. For the purpose of diversity & inclusion initiatives
    We rely on information, such as gender, or inferred gender, and ethnicity to understand the composition of our audience and ensure that our products and services are engaging across our audience.

Who we share your personal information with

We share aggregated, non-identifiable information with third parties. Before sharing this information, we ensure that it cannot identify you as an individual. For example, we regularly release information about the size and growth of our audiences.

• Advertising
  We use cookies to collect personal information and serve you with advertisements that we believe are relevant to you and your interests. There is more specific information about our advertising partners and data sharing in our Cookie Policy.
• Legal processes and successors in title
  We, and our suppliers, may also disclose your information to comply with applicable laws and regulations, court orders or other valid legal processes, and to enforce or apply our terms of use, any subscription agreement, or any of our other rights.
  We may transfer or disclose your personal information to any entity which takes over or acquires the relevant Investor Mail business.

How long we retain your personal information

We retain the majority of your personal information for as long as your account is active and therefore open; this allows you to continue accessing our content, products and services.

If you become inactive and are not a subscriber, we may delete elements of the information associated with your account. We will normally warn you if your access is going to be withdrawn and give you the opportunity to retain your account. 

Where we don’t need to keep all of your information in full, we may obfuscate or aggregate it, for example, web activity logs and survey responses. This is to ensure that we do not retain your information for any longer than is necessary.

A summary of how long your personal information is retained can be found below:

It is sometimes necessary for us to keep your personal information for longer periods of time, for example:

• If there is a statutory requirement to retain it;
• If we require the information for legal reasons or there is a legitimate business need for us to retain it;
• To ensure we do not contact you if you have asked us not to.

How we keep your personal information secure

We have appropriate technical and administrative security measures in place to help ensure that our users’ information is protected against unauthorised or accidental access, use,  alteration, or loss. We use encryption technology, such as Transport Layer Security (TLS), to protect your personal information when you order products or services from us. More information about our approach to cyber security can be found in our Cyber Security Statement.

We operate a global business, so your personal information may be processed and stored outside the Botswana and Africa. For example, our global customer services team need to access information about you in order to respond to your queries. We put in place safeguards, such as standard contractual clauses, to protect information that is transferred in this way.  

Your rights

Under data protection laws, you may have rights as an individual in relation to the personal data we hold about you. These rights include:

• The right to object to direct marketing – your preferences, including in relation to direct marketing, can be found in your account;
• The right to access the personal data that we process about you;
• The right to request the deletion of your personal data;
• The right to request the rectification of your personal data – you can manage some of this information in your account.

You can exercise these rights through your account or by contacting Customer Care.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority.

Where this Privacy Policy applies

Personal information is collected by Investor Mail with help and facilitation from Verbosec.

Our Platforms are not intended for children under 13 years of age. We do not intentionally collect or use any information from children.

Our Platforms contain links to third party web platforms which are not subject to this privacy policy. We are not responsible for their content, use of personal information, or security practices.

If you have a query in regards to the processing of your personal information, please contact our Data Protection Officer directly at privacy.officer@investormail.co.bw.

Company Name: Investor Mail (Pty) Ltd.
Registered Office: Plot 25815, Block 9, Gaborone, Botswana.
Company Registered Number: BW00005684260

Changes to this Privacy Policy

Any changes we may make to this privacy policy will be posted on this page. If changes are significant, we may choose to notify you by email or to clearly indicate on our home page that the policy has been updated.