Deleting your data

If you have chatted with an assistant built by Datalyst Africa — on a business's website, or through Facebook Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp or Telegram — the company you were talking to holds a record of that conversation, and we hold it on their behalf. Depending on the conversation, that can include:

• The messages you and the assistant exchanged.
• Anything you told the assistant that it was asked to remember for next time, such as a preference or a previous issue.
• A one-way scrambled form of the account you messaged from, so the assistant can recognise you on your next visit. We never store your Facebook, Instagram or WhatsApp identifier in a readable form.
• Any request the assistant created for you at your request, such as a leave request or a document request. Records your employer is legally required to keep may be kept by them, and that is their decision to make.

You have three ways to do this, and all of them are free:

• Tell the assistant. Say “forget me” or “delete my data” in the chat and it will raise the request for you.
• Remove the app from your Facebook or Instagram settings. Meta notifies us automatically and we delete your data straight away — that is what brought you to this page if you arrived with a confirmation code above.
• Email munyaradzi@datalystafrica.com from the address you used, or tell us the business and channel you messaged on. We respond within 30 days, and normally much sooner.

We delete your conversations with that business's assistant, everything it had remembered about you, and the stored means of messaging you back. What remains is a record that a deletion happened and when — with no identifying information in it — because we have to be able to show the request was honoured.

Two things we cannot delete for you. If the business independently holds your details in their own CRM, calendar or email — because you booked or ordered something — that copy is theirs and you should ask them directly; we will tell you who to contact. And where a business is legally required to keep a record of a transaction, that record stays for as long as the law requires.

A deletion started from your Facebook or Instagram settings gives you a confirmation code. Open this page with that code — ?code=YOUR-CODE at the end of the address — and the status appears at the top of the page. For any other request, reply to the email you received from us and we will confirm where it stands.