Privacy and what happens to your data

Calculators never send your numbers

The calculators on this site run in your browser, and the numbers you enter are never sent to a server. Position size, margin and pip value are worked out on your own device, so a lot size or a rand amount you type is not stored by us and cannot be read by us. Closing the tab clears the working.

This is a deliberate choice for a gold (XAU/USD) audience, where a reader may be testing a real account size. Because the arithmetic happens locally, you can use the tools with the same figures you would use at a broker without those figures leaving your machine.

Traffic counts and local storage

The site keeps only aggregate traffic counts, such as how many visits a page receives, and does not build a profile of individual readers. Local storage in your browser holds your own preferences, such as a currency display choice, so the page behaves the way you set it. That storage sits on your device and you can clear it at any time.

We do not sell data and we do not run a login, so there is no account profile to protect. If you email the editorial mailbox, the message and address exist in that mailbox, and that is the only place a reader's contact details are held.

The cookies you will encounter and the job each one does

This site sets a small number of first-party cookies for basic operation and anonymous traffic counting, while broker cookies appear only after you follow a link to a broker's own site. First-party cookies here remember display choices and help count visits without identifying you; they are not used to build a profile of your trading behaviour or to target advertising on this site.

Broker cookies are set by the broker's domain once you leave this site, and their purpose is to support the broker's own account opening, security and marketing measurement. Those cookies are governed by the broker's cookie notice, not this one, and you will need to read that notice on the broker's site to understand retention and opt-out. FxPro operates across several entities, so the cookie notice you see depends on which entity your account is opened with.

You can block or delete cookies through your browser settings at any time, and doing so will not break the calculators because they run entirely in your browser. Blocking broker cookies may affect how a broker's site functions after you follow a link, but it does not change anything on this site. There is no cookie wall here and no consent pop-up that withholds content until you agree.

Your rights over anything held about you and how to exercise them

Your rights under South African data protection law include access to personal information held about you, correction of inaccurate information, deletion where there is no lawful basis to keep it, and objection to processing. Because this site does not collect personal information through its own pages, in practice there is nothing here to access or correct; the rights become relevant when you deal with a broker or the traffic-counting service.

To exercise a right against this site, use the contact route published on the site and describe what you are asking for; a request about data held by a broker must go to that broker, and a request about the traffic counter must go to that provider. The broker's privacy notice will name its information officer and the process for a data subject request, which is the correct channel for account-level data.

You also have the right to complain to the Information Regulator of South Africa if you believe your personal information has been processed unlawfully. Keeping the distinction between this site, the broker and the analytics provider clear makes a complaint faster to route. None of these rights are affected by whether you use an affiliate link, and none require you to have an account with any broker.

Broker cookies are the broker's

When you follow a link to a broker, that broker sets its own cookies under its own policy. Those cookies may record that you arrived from this site, and they are controlled by the broker, not by this desk. Reading the broker's privacy and cookie notices before opening an account is the practical step.

This matters in South Africa because the entity you sign with determines which regulator and which data rules apply. FxPro is licensed by the FCA (UK) and CySEC, and an FxPro entity holds an FSCA licence in South Africa — check which entity your own account is opened with, and read that entity's policy rather than assuming the group policy applies.

Affiliate tracking when you click through to a broker

When you follow a broker link on this site, the link may carry an affiliate identifier so the broker can attribute a new account to this site; that identifier is a code in the URL, not a file on your device. The broker records the referral on its side, and any commission paid to this site comes from the broker, not from your account balance or your deposits. The identifier does not contain your name or contact details.

The affiliate arrangement does not change the price you pay for trading, because spreads, commissions and swaps are set by the broker and depend on the instrument, account type and market conditions. This site does not receive your personal information from the broker as part of the referral, and the broker's privacy policy governs what the broker does with the data you give it during account opening and verification.

You can avoid affiliate attribution by navigating to the broker directly rather than through a link on this site. Nothing about the calculators, the explanations or the risk warnings depends on whether you click an affiliate link. The editorial position is that the referral is disclosed plainly so you can weigh the source of the recommendation alongside the broker's own terms and the FSCA licensing position.

What stays on your device and what never reaches a server

The site stores your display preferences and any calculator inputs only in your browser's local storage; those values never leave your device and are not sent to any server. That means the rand amounts, lot sizes and price levels you type into a gold calculator stay on your phone or laptop and are cleared when you clear your browser data or use a private window.

What the site does not store includes your name, ID number, email address, physical address, bank account details or any trading account credentials. There is no login, no profile and no form that asks for personal information, so the site cannot lose or expose data it never collects. The only data that reaches a server is the anonymous traffic count described elsewhere on this page.

The practical consequence is that you can use every calculator on the site without identifying yourself and without creating a record that links your inputs to you. If you later open an account with a broker, that broker's own privacy policy and FSCA obligations apply to the personal information you give them, not this site's policy. Keep the two separate in your mind when you assess risk.

Retention periods and the actions that delete data

Nothing typed into the calculators is retained by this site because those values never leave your browser, and they are deleted when you clear site data or close a private window. First-party cookies persist only for the period stated in your browser's cookie store, and you can remove them at any time through browser settings. Server logs held by the host are kept for the short period needed for security and then rotated out.

Broker data retention is set by the broker and depends on its legal and regulatory obligations, including record-keeping requirements that apply to FSCA-licensed entities and to entities licensed by the FCA and CySEC. That means the retention period for account records is not something this site can state or change, and you should read the broker's privacy notice for the specific periods that apply to the entity serving you.

The actions that delete data are therefore different for each party: clearing browser storage deletes what is on your device, a request to the broker deletes or corrects account data subject to its legal retention duties, and a request to the analytics provider addresses the aggregate visit data it holds. This site cannot delete data it never received, which is the practical benefit of not collecting it in the first place.

The third parties that can see anything at all

The third parties involved are limited to the web host that serves the pages, the anonymous traffic-counting service and the broker whose link you choose to follow. The host processes standard server logs such as IP address and browser type for security and uptime; the traffic counter receives aggregate visit data; the broker receives whatever your browser sends when you navigate to its site. No other third party receives data from this site.

The broker entity that serves South Africa is FxPro Markets Direct Costa Rica Latam SRL, and FxPro is licensed by the FCA (UK) and CySEC, and an FxPro entity holds an FSCA licence in South Africa — check which entity your own account is opened with. That licensing detail matters for privacy because the entity you contract with determines which data protection regime applies to your account information after you leave this site.

No advertising networks, social media pixels or data brokers are embedded in these pages, so there is no hidden sharing of your visit with a marketing profile. If that ever changes, the change will be announced as described in the section on policy changes, and the new third party will be named before it is activated. The current position is deliberately minimal because the site has no need for more.