Fide Technologies is the trading name of Plena Fide (Pty) Ltd (registration number 2013/017462/07, South Africa). Andre Truter is the company’s sole director and owner. Depending on a client’s own procurement or policy requirements, a specific engagement may be contracted through Plena Fide (Pty) Ltd trading as Fide Technologies, or directly with Andre Truter in his individual capacity — whichever basis applies is confirmed in that client’s own engagement note. Fide Technologies provides independent ICT assessment services. We examine a client’s technology environment and report what we find. We are not a reseller, installer, or support provider for any hardware or software vendor, and we hold no financial or partnership interest in any vendor’s products. Nothing in our findings is influenced by, or written to favour, any manufacturer or software company.
An assessment reflects what we found and were able to test, at the time we looked, using the access and information made available to us. It is not, and is not presented as, a guarantee that a client’s systems are or will remain secure, reliable, or free of failure — no individual or organisation, including Fide, can offer that. What a client chooses to do with our findings, and when, is entirely their own decision and their own responsibility.
We inspect, test, and report. We identify faults, gaps, limitations and risks and hand that report to the client. What is done about any finding — whether to act on it, when, and how — is entirely the client’s own decision and the client’s own responsibility, whatever route they choose: their internal ICT team, an external vendor, or anyone else of their choosing.
If asked, we are willing to assist and guide whoever is doing that work, and we can carry out a follow-up assessment afterward, at an additional cost, to report on what was actually corrected, what was not, and whether the correction itself introduced any new fault or risk.
We take no responsibility for remediation work carried out by the client, their internal team, or any third-party vendor. This applies even to remediation work Fide itself is asked to carry out: once that work is complete and we have left the site, we have no further access to the environment and no way of knowing what is subsequently changed by the client’s own staff, contractors, or other providers. Our responsibility for a specific piece of work ends when that work is finished and we leave site — it does not extend to what happens to the environment afterward, at anyone’s hands, including our own earlier work being altered or undone by someone else.
An assessment covers only the systems, locations, and people that were made accessible to us during the engagement. Where a room was locked, a device was offline, or a person was out of office and could not be reached, that is recorded as something we could not check — it is not assumed clear, and it is not covered by the findings. The client is responsible for arranging access (including an escort where a site requires one) so that as much of the intended scope as possible can actually be examined. Anything outside what was made accessible falls outside this report.
In the course of an assessment we may see passwords, security weaknesses, financial information, and other sensitive material belonging to the client. We treat everything seen or collected during an engagement as confidential, and we do not disclose it to any third party except where the client directs us to, or where we are legally required to.
Data collected during an assessment is kept offline and secured, not left on any internet-connected system, for as long as it takes to complete and deliver the report. Once a report has been delivered and accepted by the client, the raw collected data is deleted within 30 days unless the client asks us in writing to keep it longer for a specific reason. The final report itself may be retained for our own records for a reasonable period (up to 12 months) unless the client asks for it to be deleted sooner. Where any personal information belonging to the client’s staff or customers is incidentally collected during an assessment, it is handled under the same confidentiality and deletion commitment, in line with the Protection of Personal Information Act.
Fide’s responsibility in connection with any assessment is limited to the fee paid for that specific engagement. We are not liable for losses arising from a client’s decision to act on, delay acting on, or not act on, our findings. This is in addition to, not instead of, the remediation limits set out in Section 3 above.
Fide does not sell, install, or receive commission on any hardware, software, or vendor solution. Our reports state what we found and what we recommend investigating or correcting — the client is free to use any provider, including their existing internal or external ICT team, to carry out any resulting work.
These terms may be updated as Fide’s services develop. The version on the website at the time an engagement is agreed is the version that applies to that engagement.
A standard engagement requires a 50% deposit before work begins, with the remaining 50% due once the assessment is complete. The final report itself is released once that final payment has been received in full — not before. This is the same basis Fide (and Andre, personally, across more than a decade of related work) has operated on for years: we do not carry the cost of a client’s work before it is paid for. Specific figures and invoicing detail for a particular engagement are set out in that client’s own engagement note, not here.
Some pillars of an assessment — for example, Cloud, Microsoft 365, Software & Assets — require temporary, read-only access to a client’s tenant or backend systems to draw a complete and accurate report, including pulling Microsoft’s own native reporting and licensing data alongside our own independent findings. Where this applies, the specific access required is agreed with the client before it is granted. Once the assessment is complete and the report delivered, Fide will notify the client that this access can be safely removed — it is not required, and should not be left in place, beyond that point.