You must be 18 or older to book. Before you arrive you must upload a clear copy of your ID or passport, and you must bring that same document with you so our caretaker can check it against you at the door. This is not optional and it is not us being difficult — South African law requires every accommodation provider to keep a register of who sleeps on the premises, and that register must include a copy of your identity document.
Opunest PTY Limited is the responsible party for the personal information described in this notice. You can reach us at 61 Stewart Place, Sandhurst, Johannesburg, South Africa, by email at Admin@opunest.co.za, or on WhatsApp at +27 78 333 0359. Our Information Officer is the head of the company and can be contacted at the same address.
The person making the booking must be at least 18 years of age and must be one of the people actually staying at the property. Bookings made on behalf of someone else, or made by a person under 18, may be cancelled without refund. Children are of course welcome as part of a booking made by an adult who is staying with them.
When you book directly with us we collect the following. Supplying it is mandatory — we cannot accommodate you without it, and a booking that is not completed cannot be honoured.
We do not collect more than this. We will never ask you for your banking login details, your card PIN, or a copy of your bank card. Your card payment is handled entirely by Yoco and we never see or store your card number.
Section 40 of the Immigration Act 13 of 2002, read with regulation 36 of the Immigration Regulations, 2014, requires the person in charge of premises where paid lodging is provided to keep a register of every person given sleeping accommodation there. That register must contain each guest's full names, a copy of their identity document or passport, their residence status in the Republic, their normal residential address and their signature. An immigration officer or police officer may ask to inspect it. Failing to keep it is a criminal offence.
Because this collection is required by law, we process this information under section 11(1)(c) of the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 — compliance with a legal obligation — rather than under your consent. That means you cannot withdraw it and still stay with us, and we would rather be straight with you about that than pretend otherwise.
We keep the guest register, including your ID or passport copy, for two years from the date of your stay. That is the period regulation 36 requires us to safeguard it for. Once the two years have passed we destroy it securely, in a way that prevents it from being reconstructed.
Booking, invoice and payment records are kept longer, for five to seven years, because our tax and company law obligations require it — but those records do not contain your ID copy. If your booking is cancelled before you ever stay with us, we delete any ID document you uploaded, since no register entry arises.
Please bring the original of the document you uploaded. Our caretaker will ask to see it when you arrive and will check that it matches both you and the copy on file, before letting you into the property. This is a quick visual check done by a person — we do not use facial recognition or any automated matching, and the caretaker does not photograph or keep your document.
If you cannot produce the document, or it does not match the booking, we may refuse access. In that case the booking is treated as a no-show under our cancellation policy. If someone else will be arriving in your place, tell us before the day so we can update the register properly.
Your ID copy is seen only by the Opunest team member responsible for the register, and by the caretaker at the point of arrival for the visual check described above. We do not sell your information, we do not share it for marketing, and we do not give it to other guests or to the property owners. We will disclose it to an immigration officer or police officer if they lawfully demand inspection of the register, and to our accountants or attorneys where they need it to advise us.
Some of the services we use to run the business — our booking system, our email provider and our website host — store data outside South Africa. Where that happens we satisfy ourselves under section 72 of POPIA that the information receives comparable protection.
Your document is uploaded over an encrypted connection and stored in restricted-access storage that is not publicly reachable and not indexed by search engines. Access is limited to the named person responsible for the register. We keep the register separate from our general correspondence, and we ask that you do not email or WhatsApp your ID to us — please use the upload link, which is what the security measures are built around.
If your information is ever compromised, we will notify you and the Information Regulator as section 22 of POPIA requires.
You may ask us what personal information we hold about you and request a copy of it. You may ask us to correct or delete information that is inaccurate, irrelevant, excessive, out of date or obtained unlawfully. You may object to our processing on reasonable grounds, except where the law requires us to process it. To exercise any of these, email Admin@opunest.co.za and we will respond as soon as we reasonably can.
You also have the right to complain to the Information Regulator of South Africa: JD House, 27 Stiemens Street, Braamfontein, Johannesburg 2001 — complaints.IR@justice.gov.za — inforegulator.org.za.
By booking you agree to the house rules published on each property's page, which form part of these terms. The number of people staying may not exceed the number of guests on your booking. You are responsible for any damage caused during your stay by you or anyone you bring onto the property, and we may recover the cost of repair or replacement from you. Serious breaches of the house rules may end the stay early without refund.
Full refund up to 24 hours before check-in, South African time. After that, no refund for the nights booked. Dates held pending an EFT payment are released automatically if payment is not received within 24 hours.
This notice was last updated in July 2026. We may update it as our practices or the law change, and the current version always lives at this address. If a change materially affects how we handle your information, we will tell you.
We would rather explain it properly than have you wonder. Ask us anything.
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