Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

AVA Medical Booking ("AVA", "we", "us") is an AI booking agent for medical practices, built and operated by A.I Partner (Pty) Ltd in South Africa. This policy explains what personal information we collect when you communicate with our agents, and how we protect it.

We adhere to South African law, including the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 ("POPIA"). Where this policy refers to "personal information", it means information as defined in POPIA.

2. Information we collect

When you speak to AVA (for example over WhatsApp) we collect and record the following:

• Your WhatsApp number. Our agents record the WhatsApp number of the person speaking to it, automatically, when you message AVA.
• Conversation content. All conversations are recorded, including the messages you send and AVA's replies, so that we can provide bookings, answer queries and hand over to practice staff where needed.
• Booking and practice details you provide, such as your name, preferred appointment times, branch or practitioner preferences, and medical aid or administrative details you choose to share.
• Technical records, such as message timestamps and delivery information needed to operate the service reliably.

3. All conversations are recorded

Please note that all conversations with AVA are recorded. Recording takes place in compliance with POPIA and is limited to what is necessary to operate the booking service, keep accurate records for the practice, enable human handover, and meet our legal obligations.

4. Why we use your information

We process your personal information only for clear, lawful purposes:

• Taking, confirming, rescheduling and cancelling medical bookings;
• Answering your queries about the practice;
• Sending appointment reminders and follow-ups;
• Escalating conversations to practice staff for human handover;
• Operating, securing and improving the AVA service.

5. Where your information is stored

Conversations and related records are stored in data centres in Johannesburg, South Africa. We apply enterprise-grade security measures, including access controls and audit trails, and we limit access to authorised personnel and to the medical practice serving you.

6. Third parties and our LLM provider

Customer data is never seen by any third party. We do not sell personal information, and we do not share your identifying details, such as your name or WhatsApp number, with third parties.

To generate replies, conversation content stripped of customer information is sent to our large language model (LLM) provider, OpenAI, for processing and inference. OpenAI receives only de-identified content needed to produce a response, never your WhatsApp number or other identifying details.

7. How long we keep information

We keep personal information only for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes set out in this policy or as required by South African law (for example, practice record-keeping obligations). When information is no longer needed, it is deleted or de-identified.

8. Your rights under POPIA

Under POPIA you have the right to:

• Request access to the personal information we hold about you;
• Request correction of inaccurate or outdated information;
• Request deletion of your personal information;
• Object to the processing of your personal information;
• Lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator of South Africa.

Data deletion: to request access, correction or deletion of your data, contact our compliance officer at wes@aipartner.co.za. Please send the request from an email address you can be reached at, and include the WhatsApp number you used with AVA so we can locate your records. We will respond within a reasonable time as required by POPIA.

9. Children

AVA may be used to book appointments for minors. Where a conversation relates to a child, we expect the request to come from a parent, guardian or other person lawfully acting for the child, and POPIA rights in respect of that information may be exercised by that person.

10. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time to reflect changes in our service or in South African law. The current version will always be published at aipartner.co.za/ava/privacypolicy, with the effective date shown at the top. Continued use of AVA after an update takes effect constitutes acceptance of the revised policy.

11. Contact us

For privacy questions, access requests or deletion requests, contact our data compliance officer at wes@aipartner.co.za. For more information about AVA Medical Booking, reach out to AVA on WhatsApp at +27 63 308 9746.