One profile. Every form filled from it.
Enter your particulars once. Whether it is a first application or a renewal, the forms are completed from them, the documents gathered beside them, and the finished pack handed back to you to print, sign in ink and submit yourself.
1.0Procedure — what you do, and what happens for you
4 stepsYou enter your particulars once, the app fills the SAPS forms from them, and you print the pack and hand it in yourself. Three passes to build it, and one more after it is lodged.
| 1.1 | Enter your particularsIdentity, address, competencies, licences held, associations and referees — once, then reused by every application afterwards. |
| 1.2 | The forms fill themselvesFor a renewal: the 518(a), the 517(g) where a competency renews alongside the licence, and a renewal declaration. For a first application: the letter requesting prior notice of a refusal. The motivation itself is yours to write — the app gathers the pack around it. |
| 1.3 | Print, sign, hand inThe pack downloads as one file. SAPS wants wet ink, so the signing happens on paper — and the submitting happens at the counter, by you. See 5.0. |
| 1.4 | Check on it, once it is lodgedEnter the reference SAPS give you and the app asks their public status enquiry how the application is progressing, at most once a day, and shows you the answer with the date SAPS built it from. That is a question about an application already with them: nothing you entered is checked against SAPS records, and nothing is submitted for you. See 5.3. |
2.0Contents — what is in a renewal pack, and a first application
2 packsA renewal pack and a first-application pack carry different documents. Two paths, and they carry different papers: a first application is built around a motivation you write; a renewal is built around forms the app completes from your particulars.
2.1 · A first application
| No. | Document | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 01 | Your motivationWhy you need the firearm, in your own words — the questionnaire draws it out of you | You write |
| 02 | Request for prior notice (PAJA)Asks SAPS to tell you before refusing, so you can answer first — under the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act | Generated |
| 03 | SAPS 271Obtained and completed at the counter, in black pen. The app does not print one — the dealer's section is theirs to sign | At the counter |
| 04 | Certified copy of identity documentYour identity document or passport, certified by a commissioner of oaths | Supplied |
| 05 | Proof of residence, and employment confirmationA utility bill or lease in your name, and a letter from your employer. SAPS asks that proof of residence be no more than three months old | Supplied |
| 06 | Photographs of safeThe mounted safe, its fixings and the wall behind it. One photograph per angle | Supplied |
| 07 | Competency certificate, and training proficiencyThe competency for the section you are applying under, with the training certificate behind it | Supplied |
| 08 | Character referencesRequested by email, returned signed in ink | Supplied |
| 09 | Association endorsement and activity reportAnd proof of the hunt, where the application is a hunting one | Supplied |
2.2 · A renewal
| No. | Document | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 01 | SAPS 518(a) renewal formOne form, however many firearms you are renewing | Generated |
| 02 | SAPS 517(g) competency renewal formOnly when the competency expires with the licence it covers | Generated |
| 03 | Renewal declarationCarries the firearm particulars the 518(a) has no room for | Generated |
| 04 | Request for prior notice (PAJA)Asks SAPS to tell you before refusing, so you can answer first — under the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act | Generated |
| 05 | Certified copy of identity documentYour identity document or passport, certified by a commissioner of oaths | Supplied |
| 06 | Proof of residenceA utility bill or lease in your name. A renewal is not held up for it, but it ships if you have uploaded one | Supplied |
| 07 | Photographs of safeThe mounted safe, its fixings and the wall behind it. One photograph per angle | Supplied |
| 08 | The licence being renewed, and your competency certificateA competency carries no expiry on its face, so the app works one out from the licences it covers | Supplied |
| 09 | Association and dedicated-status certificatesMembership, and dedicated hunter or dedicated sports person status where the section calls for it. A section 16 renewal turns on continued compliance | Supplied |
Neither list is fixed. A permanent resident, a married applicant, a hunting application and a licence that has already lapsed each ask for something different — the pack is built to what your answers require. A lapsed licence in particular is not a renewal at all: it is a fresh application, and the app says so before you download — then asks you to confirm you know the renewal may not be lodged, and records that you did.
3.0Custody — where your documents are encrypted
3 clausesYour documents and answers are encrypted in your own browser before they are sent, under a key derived from your password, and the server stores only ciphertext it cannot read.
3.1 · Encrypted here
Documents and answers are encrypted in your browser, under a key derived from your password and held only on your own device.
3.2 · Unreadable there
The server stores ciphertext. That is not a policy about who looks — there is nothing legible to look at.
3.3 · Both ways
Lose your password and your recovery key together and the data cannot be recovered by anyone, this operator included.
4.0Referees — for someone asked to sign a reference
1 noteYou will have had an email with a letter attached. Print it, sign it in ink and return it to the applicant. You do not need an account, and nothing is held about you beyond what the applicant entered.
Privacy notice5.0Limits — what this is not
4 clauses- 5.1Nothing is submitted to SAPS on your behalf. The pack is handed in by you.
- 5.2No legal advice is given. This is not a law firm and nobody operating it acts as a legal practitioner.
- 5.3Nothing you enter is checked against SAPS records. The app asks SAPS one thing only — the status of an application you have already lodged — and whether that application succeeds is theirs to decide.
- 5.4Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or acting for the South African Police Service.
6.0Privacy notice — POPIA section 18, in full
9 clausesProtection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 · section 18
What this website collects, whose information it is, why it is held, who receives it, and what you can do about it.
6.1 · Who is responsible
PewPew Renew is operated by an individual, not a company. Questions about this notice, or a request to access, correct or object to the processing described here, go to privacy@pewpewrenew.com.
This notice does not yet name that individual. Section 18(1)(b) asks for the responsible party's name and address, and an email address is neither. Ask at the address above and you will be given both; they will be printed here.
6.2 · Whose information this covers
This notice covers the applicant, the applicant's spouse where they are married, and the applicant's referees. Three people, and only one of them is the user.
| No. | Person | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 01 | The applicantName, identity or passport number, gender, contact details, addresses, employer and occupation, firearm and licence particulars, competency and dedicated-status details, association memberships, and the documents uploaded to support an application. | Themselves |
| 02 | The applicant's spouseName, identity or passport number, and contact details, where the applicant is married. A certified copy of their identity document, if uploaded. | The applicant |
| 03 | The applicant's refereesName, contact details, and their stated relationship to the applicant. A signed reference letter, if uploaded. | The applicant |
Spouse and referee details are supplied by the applicant, not collected from the person concerned. That is the source disclosure section 18(1)(a) requires where information is not collected from the data subject directly.
6.3 · Why it is collected
To assemble the forms and supporting documents that a firearm licence application or renewal to the South African Police Service requires, and nothing else. It is not used for marketing, is not sold, and is not shared with anyone for any other purpose.
That covers the information in 6.2. This website also measures its own public page — how many people open it, how quickly it loads, whether it fails — which is not information about an applicant and is described separately in 6.9.
6.4 · Whether you have to supply it
Supplying it is voluntary — nothing here is compelled, and you may stop at any point. The consequence is that the forms needing an item cannot be completed, and where the item is one your own answers make necessary, the pack is held back until you supply it. Nothing is hidden from you when that happens: the download button says which item it is still waiting for. What you have entered stays saved and encrypted, and the pack becomes available the moment the missing item is added.
6.5 · Who receives it
6.5.1 · The police
SAPS receives the completed pack — handed over by the applicant, not by this service. Nothing is submitted to SAPS on anyone's behalf.
One thing does go to SAPS from here rather than from the applicant. Where an application has been lodged and its reference entered, the service asks the SAPS public status enquiry how that application is progressing, at most once a day, sending the reference and the firearm's serial number to do it. Both are particulars SAPS already holds. The enquiry leaves from the server, so SAPS sees this website rather than the applicant's own address, and nothing about it is kept here: the answer goes back to the browser and is stored encrypted with everything else.
6.5.2 · Nobody else, and where it is held
Where the applicant asks the service to email a reference letter for signature, that email goes to the referee through Amazon Simple Email Service. Nobody beyond that receives anything.
Everything the service stores sits on Amazon Web Services infrastructure in the Africa (Cape Town) region, and none of it is stored outside South Africa. Two things cross the border in transit, and are named here rather than left to be found out. A reference letter emailed to a referee is delivered to whatever mail provider that referee uses, which for a gmail.com or outlook.com address means a copy held outside the country. And traffic between a browser and this website reaches it through a content delivery network, whose nearest point of presence is in South Africa for a visitor here and abroad for one who is not — every leg of that connection is encrypted, and the documents and answers inside it were encrypted in the browser before they left it, as 6.6 describes.
6.6 · How it is protected
Documents and answers are encrypted in the browser before they are sent, under a key derived from the applicant's password and held only on their own device. The server stores ciphertext and cannot read it. That means the operator cannot read an applicant's documents either — and it also means that if the applicant loses both their password and their recovery key, the data cannot be recovered by anyone.
6.7 · Your rights
- 6.7.1Access and correctionAn applicant can see and change everything held about them once signed in. A spouse or referee can ask, at the address in 6.1, what the applicant has entered about them and have it corrected — though because the data is encrypted to the applicant's key, the operator will have to route that request through the applicant rather than answer it directly.
- 6.7.2ObjectionA spouse or referee may object to their details being held. The consequence, under section 11(4), is that the application those details support may not be able to proceed — a firearm licence application requires a spouse's particulars where the applicant is married, and requires referees.
- 6.7.3DeletionAn applicant can delete their account and all of its data from this website at any time, which removes the spouse and referee details with it.
- 6.7.4ComplaintsA complaint may be made to the Information Regulator (South Africa), inforegulator.org.za.
6.8 · What this service is not
- PewPew Renew assembles forms from what the applicant enters. It does not give legal advice, is not a law firm, and no one operating it acts as a legal practitioner. Nothing the applicant enters is checked against SAPS records, and whether an application succeeds is SAPS's decision alone. The single enquiry it makes of SAPS is the public firearm status enquiry, asked only about an application the applicant has already lodged, and only with the reference number they supply.
6.9 · How this website measures itself
This public page reports how it performed to Amazon CloudWatch RUM: the page opened, how long it took to render, and any error the browser raised. It is how a site with no other analytics finds out whether it is reaching anyone and whether it is broken for them.
| No. | What is true of it | Where |
|---|---|---|
| 01 | This page onlyThe Locker does not run it. Nothing you enter, upload or read once signed in is measured, because the measuring code is not loaded on that page at all. | Public page |
| 02 | No cookies, and no accountNothing is stored on your device and nothing is tied to a person. A visit is not linked to an applicant, and cannot be: the two never meet. | Your browser |
| 03 | What the browser tells any websiteThe address of the page, where you arrived from, your browser and device type, and an approximate location from your network address. No name, no contact details, and nothing from 6.2. | Collected |
| 04 | Africa (Cape Town)Held in the same region as everything else in 6.5.2, by the same operator. Neither of the border crossings named there applies to this: the browser reports straight to the af-south-1 endpoint rather than through the content delivery network. It is not sold or shared. | af-south-1 |
To object, or to ask that it stop, write to privacy@pewpewrenew.com. You can also stop it at your end without asking anyone: this page reads both Global Privacy Control and the older "do not track", and does not start measuring if either one is set. Browsers have been retiring the "do not track" switch in favour of Global Privacy Control, so that is the one to look for if yours no longer offers it. The page works exactly the same either way.