Privacy policy
Last updated 17 October 2026
FreeTime Check is run by Bido Ventures (Pty) Ltd, registration number 2026/830560/07, a company registered in South Africa ("we", "us"). This policy explains what information we collect when you ask for an audit, what we do with it and the choices you have. We follow South Africa's Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA).
What we collect
- Contact details you give us: your name, company, work email and, if you choose, a phone number.
- Invoices and shipping records you send us: demurrage and detention invoices, bill of lading and container numbers, dates, free time and charges. We ask you to black out account numbers, bank details, signatures and anything about your own customers before sending.
- Our correspondence with you, including disputes you approve and carrier replies you share with us.
This website does not use tracking cookies, advertising tags or analytics.
How we use it
- To audit your invoices against the US Federal Maritime Commission rules and report our findings to you.
- To draft disputes for your approval and track the outcome.
- To calculate and invoice our fee, which is a share of the money we save you.
- To reply to you about your audit.
We do not sell your information, and we do not use it for marketing to anyone else. We will not add you to a mailing list.
Who else sees it
We use a small number of service providers to do the work, and they handle your files only on our behalf:
- Our email provider, to receive your invoices and correspond with you.
- Cloud storage and software hosting, to keep your files and run our checks.
- An AI service (Anthropic's Claude) that reads invoice documents and pulls out dates and charges so we can check them. Its business terms do not allow it to use our data to train its models.
We send a dispute to a carrier, terminal or other billing party only after you approve it. We may share information if the law requires it.
Where it is kept
We are based in South Africa, and some of our service providers store data in the United States or elsewhere. Wherever your files are kept, we require them to be protected to a standard at least as strong as POPIA requires.
How long we keep it
We keep your invoices for as long as we are auditing them or a dispute is open, then delete them within 90 days. We keep the records needed to bill our fee and meet tax rules (for example, the amount saved and the invoice it relates to) for five years, as South African law requires. You can ask us to delete your files at any time, and we will do so unless we must keep a record by law.
How we protect it
Your files are kept in access-controlled accounts with two-step sign-in. Only the people doing your audit can open them. We never ask for logins to your carrier portals, email or systems.
Your rights
You can ask us to show you the personal information we hold about you, correct it, delete it, or stop using it. Email us at the address below and we will reply within 30 days. If you are unhappy with how we handle your information, you can complain to South Africa's Information Regulator at inforegulator.org.za.
Contact
Information Officer: Bubele Bido, Director, Bido Ventures (Pty) Ltd
Email: bubele@getfreetimecheck.com
Post: PO Box 158, Burgersdorp, 9744, South Africa
Changes
If we change this policy, we will update the date at the top of this page. If a change affects how we use files you have already sent us, we will tell you by email first.