Privacy notice
Updated 25 Sep 2026
FarePass is how your child's bus company runs bus tickets: you buy rides, your child shows a code, and the driver's phone takes one ride off. This notice says what FarePass keeps about you and your child, why, who sees it, how long it is kept, and what you can ask for.
Who is responsible
Your child's bus company is responsible for your information and your child's (the responsible party, in the words of the Protection of Personal Information Act, POPIA). Hessoft Systems runs FarePass for them and uses the information for nothing else.
Questions and requests go to your child's bus company.
What FarePass keeps
About your child:
- first name, surname, grade and school
- the route, and the pick-up point if the bus company needs one
- a photo, if you send one or the bus company takes one, so the driver can see the code is your child's
- the ride code
- each ride: when, on which bus, and when a friend rode on the ticket
- the rides bought and the rides left
About you:
- your name, phone number and language
- your PIN, if you set one, kept in a form nobody can read back
- what you bought and how you paid; card details go to PayFast, and FarePass never sees them
- the messages sent to you, and when you agreed to this notice
Nothing else: no ID number, no address, no date of birth.
Where it comes from
The bus company gives FarePass your child's details and your number from its own list. Rides come from the driver's phone; purchases, and a photo if you send one, come from you.
What it is used for
- to let your child on the bus with a code
- to count rides and take payment for them
- to send you messages about rides and payments, and codes to sign in
- for the bus company's accounts and monthly report
It is not used for advertising, and it is not sold.
Who else sees it
- the bus company's office, and its drivers, who see your child's first name, photo and rides left
- PayFast, when you pay by card or instant EFT; you give it your card details yourself, and FarePass sends it none of yours
- WhatsApp and an SMS company, which carry messages to your number
- Sentry, which receives FarePass's own error reports, with phone numbers and codes taken out first
- the company whose server FarePass runs on
Some of these, WhatsApp among them, keep information outside South Africa.
How long it is kept
For as long as your child rides with the bus company. When the bus company takes your child off FarePass, the name, photo and other details are deleted 12 months later. The rides and payments stay, with no name on them, for the bus company's accounts. Your name and number go at the same time, unless you have another child on FarePass.
What you can ask for
You can ask the bus company to show you what FarePass holds about you or your child, to correct it or to delete it, and you can object to its use. You can take back your agreement at any time: ask the bus company to take you off FarePass.
You can also complain to the Information Regulator: www.inforegulator.org.za
Agreeing to this notice
The first time you sign in, FarePass asks you to agree to this notice, for yourself and for your child. If you do not agree, you are signed out; ask the bus company how else to pay for rides.