Terms of use

Welcome to www.dignitysouthafrica.org, the website of Dignity South Africa (DignitySA). By using the site you agree to these terms. Please also read our privacy policy, which explains how we handle personal information.

What this site is for

DignitySA publishes information and personal stories about choice, dignity and care at the end of life: palliative care, decisions about life-sustaining treatment, advance directives, and medical assistance in dying. Everything on the site is general information, not advice. It is not legal, medical or financial advice and it does not create a professional relationship with you. Decisions about your health, your care or your legal documents should be made with your own doctor, attorney or adviser. Nothing on this site encourages anyone to end their life; if you are in crisis, please contact your doctor or a crisis helpline such as the South African Depression and Anxiety Group (SADAG).

Membership

Membership is free. When you create an account you agree to give accurate details, to keep your password to yourself and to tell us if you think your account has been used without your permission. We may suspend or close an account that is used to abuse the site, other members or our staff. The same applies to an account made only for the Dignity Navigator, which you can have without becoming a member.

The Dignity Navigator

The Dignity Navigator helps you think through and record your wishes and keep your important documents in one place. You can use it as a DignitySA member or with an account made only for the Navigator.

30 days free. You start with 30 days free: The Essentials course and the documents it makes, with no card needed. Your 30 days start on the day you sign up, or add the Navigator to an account you already have, and end at midnight, South African time, at the end of the 30th day. From 7 days before they end until 7 days after, you can take one more month free, once.

Full access. Full access is a once-off payment of R650, the amount shown on the payment page before you pay. It covers: Full access to the Dignity Navigator, for life: sharing with the people you trust, and every course, including new ones as they are released. A once-off payment with no recurring charges. The people you nominate never pay anything. You can get full access at any time, during your free days or after them.

If you don't get full access. When your free days end without full access, your Navigator is locked: you can still read and download everything in it, but you can't change it, send documents from it or let anyone log in to it. Getting full access opens it again at once. We keep a locked Navigator for a year, with reminders, then delete everything in it and tell you that we have. You can close your Navigator yourself at any time before you get full access, which deletes everything in it.

Earlier users. If you had the Navigator before 30 days free began, you have full access, free, for life.

Paying. You pay through our payment provider, Stitch, on its secure checkout; we never see or store your card details. Full access starts as soon as your payment is confirmed, and we email you a receipt.

Refunds. If you are not happy, ask for a full refund within 30 days of paying, for any reason: email [email protected] with the reference on your receipt. We refund the full amount to the card or account you paid with, and full access ends when the refund is made. Your Navigator then goes back to where it would be without the payment: to your free days if any are left, or locked if they are over. If you paid before 30 days free began, you keep full access, free, instead. This does not limit any right you have under the Consumer Protection Act or the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act.

Gifts. You can buy full access for someone else, at the same price, by their email address: we email them your message and a link, as soon as you have paid or at 09:00 South African time on the date you choose. Whoever opens the link with any account gets full access, as if they had paid; someone who already has full access can pass the gift on to someone else instead. Treat the link like a gift card: it works once, for three years from the day we send it. We tell you when the gift is sent, and that it was opened only if the person who opens it asks us to; nothing about what they do in their Navigator. Giving a gift does not make you one of their trusted people. A gift is a purchase, not a donation. If you change your mind, ask for a full refund within 30 days of paying, as long as the gift has not been opened: email [email protected] with the reference on your receipt, and its link stops working. Once a gift is opened, it can't be refunded.

Your information. What you write and upload remains yours; we do not claim any rights over it. How we keep it safe, and who can see it, is set out in the Navigator's privacy statement and its privacy questions and answers. Templates and guides in the Navigator are provided for information; whether a document is valid for you depends on your circumstances and on South African law, so have important documents checked by a professional.

Who provides it. The Dignity Navigator is a service of Dignity SA NPC (company registration number 2025/680715/08, registered public benefit organisation 930088978), 79 Longlands Country Estate, Polkadraai Road, Vlottenburg, Stellenbosch, 7600, South Africa. Email [email protected].

Donations

Donations are processed by our payment providers on their terms. DignitySA is a registered public benefit organisation and issues Section 18A certificates for qualifying donations. If a donation is made in error, contact [email protected] promptly and we will do what we reasonably can to help.

The petition

By signing the petition you confirm that you are a real person signing once, in your own name. We use signatures only as described in the privacy policy.

Our content

The text, images, documents and recordings on this site belong to DignitySA or are used with permission. You are welcome to share links, quote short extracts with attribution, and download the documents we provide for personal, non-commercial use. Please ask before reproducing an article, story or recording in full. Personal stories are published with the consent of the people who told them and should not be edited or republished without our agreement.

Links to other sites

We link to other organisations' sites and to press coverage for your convenience. We are not responsible for their content or their handling of your information.

Acceptable use

Do not use the site to send spam, to attempt to gain access to accounts or systems that are not yours, to scrape personal information, or to post anything unlawful, defamatory or abusive in member areas.

No warranty and limitation of liability

We work hard to keep the site accurate and available, but we provide it "as is". To the extent South African law allows, DignitySA is not liable for loss arising from your use of the site or reliance on its content. Nothing in these terms limits rights you have under the Consumer Protection Act or other law that cannot be excluded.

Changes and governing law

We may update these terms; the date above shows the current version. These terms are governed by the law of the Republic of South Africa.

Contact

Dignity South Africa · [email protected]