One profile. Every form filled from it.

You 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.

A 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, which you write or the app assembles from your answers; a renewal is built around forms the app completes from your particulars.

2.1 · A first application

2.2 · A renewal

A renewal must be lodged at least 90 days before the licence expires: section 24(1) of the Firearms Control Act. Handed in later, while the licence is still valid, SAPS's own circular (27/5/2/1 of 3 February 2016) permits it, with reasons given. The 518(a) asks when it was handed in, and the app answers that from your dates.

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.

Your 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.

1. 3.1Encrypted hereDocuments and answers are encrypted in your browser, under a key derived from your password and held only on your own device.
2. 3.2Unreadable thereThe server stores ciphertext, with exceptions it is told about. Unless you turn reminders off, it keeps the bare dates your renewals fall due, so it can email you before one passes — dates, whether each is a licence or a competency, and an internal reference id, never what the licence is or whose. Whatever the reminder setting, it keeps what the retention clock in 6.6 runs on: the day your account was last opened, the day the last licence recorded in your locker runs out, and whether an application is lodged and awaiting a decision — two dates and a yes or no, nothing else.
3. 3.3Both waysLose your password and your recovery key together and the data cannot be recovered by anyone, this operator included.

Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 · section 18

Version 1.16 · Last updated 2026-10-31

What this website collects, whose information it is, why it is held, who receives it, and what you can do about it.

When this changes. Amendments are published here, and the version and date above move with them — so the notice you are reading can always be told apart from the one you read before. No period of advance notice is promised: what is promised is that a changed notice says it has changed, on the day it does.

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.

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.

This notice takes no position on anyone's age. Nobody this notice describes — you, a spouse, or a referee you name — is asked for an age, and none of this website's checks depend on one. If you want to know why, ask at the address in 6.1.

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.

One further use, added on 12 August 2026: unless the applicant turns reminders off, the dates their renewals fall due are used to email them before a deadline passes. What that costs in confidentiality is set out in 6.7, and it is still used for nothing else.

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.

Two of those answers are a special case, and the law says so. Whether you have a criminal record or a pending case, and whether you have been charged with negligent use or safekeeping, is special personal information under section 26 — which prohibits processing it unless section 27 allows it. What allows it here is your consent under section 27(1)(a), given by answering: SAPS requires the declaration, the choice to answer is yours, and the document states your position only on the answer you give. It is used for that document and nothing else. Like everything else in 6.2 it is encrypted in your browser under a key derived from your password, so it can be read by you and not by us — and it stays there with the rest of your application rather than being discarded once the declaration is made.

6.5 · Who receives it

6.6 · How long it is kept

A firearm licence runs a fixed term, so "as long as necessary" has an actual shape here rather than being a phrase. The information in a locker is kept until ninety days after the later of two dates: the day the last licence recorded in it runs out, and three years after the account was last opened. While an application is lodged and awaiting a decision, the clock does not run at all — a decision that takes eighteen months must not cost an applicant the papers they are waiting on.

Three emails go out before anything is deleted: on the day that period is reached, thirty days later, and thirty days after that. Signing in stops it. Nothing is deleted while an account is in use, and returning at any point during those ninety days is all it takes.

When the date does arrive the encryption key described in 6.7 is destroyed first, which makes everything stored under it permanently unreadable — by anyone, this operator included — and the documents, the answers and the account itself are then removed. It cannot be undone. Copies of what was deleted stay in the service's encrypted backups for up to 35 days and are then gone; nothing is restored from them for an applicant, and the documents and answers in them cannot be opened by anyone, this operator included. What survives is a monthly count of how many accounts were deleted, which carries no identifier of any kind and cannot be connected to a person; the consequence is deliberate and worth stating plainly, which is that someone returning afterwards cannot be told what became of their own account, because after those 35 days nothing is kept that could answer.

To make that possible the service keeps three facts against each account outside the encryption, whatever the reminder setting: the day it was last opened, the day the last licence recorded in it runs out, and whether an application is lodged and awaiting a decision. The browser sends the second and third, because the server cannot read a licence or an answer. They are two dates and a yes or no and nothing else, they are declared in 3.2 with everything else the server can read, and they exist because the alternative is deleting people who are still using the service or still waiting on a decision.

6.7 · 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.

Some things are deliberately not encrypted. Unless the applicant turns reminders off, the browser stores the bare dates their renewals fall due where the server can read them, so a reminder can be emailed before a deadline passes: a date, whether it concerns a licence or a competency, and an internal reference id. Never a licence number, a firearm or a name — those stay sealed with everything else, which is why the reminder email itself can say no more than that something is due. Turning reminders off, under My Renewals, deletes those stored dates at once, and the calendar export remains for anyone who would rather their own calendar did the reminding. The retention record described in 6.6 is kept too, whatever the reminder setting — the day the account was last opened, the day the last licence recorded in it runs out, and whether an application is lodged and awaiting a decision — because the deletion clock is an obligation rather than a choice.

Signing in puts several things in the browser, and none of them is a cookie. The two tokens that prove who the applicant is sit in session storage, beside a random name for the tab and the time its session began, and all of them go when the tab does. The key itself sits in the browser's own database, as a handle no script can copy out of it, tied to the tab that made it and deleted at sign-out, or on the next visit if the tab was simply closed. Two timestamps sit in local storage, which outlasts the tab, and stay after signing out: when the applicant last did something, so an idle session ends in every open tab together, and when they last signed out, so a tab left asleep signs itself out when it wakes. Neither carries a name, a firearm or a token. Deleting the account leaves one more timestamp, so other open tabs can say why they closed, until the next sign-in on that browser. The last is the applicant's choice: ticking trust this device for 30 days keeps the token that renews a session, sealed under that same password-derived key, so what is stored is inert to anyone who does not know the password. Signing out deletes it and ends every session at the server, so signing out on another device stops it working here too, though a token already issued stays accepted until it expires, which is up to eight hours.

If it is ever compromised. Where there are reasonable grounds to believe an unauthorised person has got at your information, section 22 requires that the Information Regulator and you are both told. You will be told as soon as is reasonably possible after the discovery. No deadline is quoted here because the Act sets none, and the only delay it permits is one the police or the Regulator ask for while the scope is established. What you are told will be enough to act on: what happened, what it may mean for you, what has been done about it, what we suggest you do, and who was responsible if that is ever known.

What such a compromise would expose here is unusual, and it is better said now than during one. Not your documents or your answers: those are encrypted before they leave the browser, under a key this service never holds, so they are unreadable to whoever took them and to us. What would be legible is the shape around them — the address you sign in with, which slots you have filled rather than what is in them, how many applications you have, the renewal dates, and the retention record described above: the day the account was last opened, the day the last licence recorded runs out, and whether an application is lodged and awaiting a decision. That is the whole of it, and it is said this precisely so that nothing here reads as a promise that a compromise would be harmless.

6.8 · Your rights

1. 6.8.1Access 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.
2. 6.8.2ObjectionA 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.
3. 6.8.3DeletionAn 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.
4. 6.8.4ComplaintsA complaint may be made to the Information Regulator (South Africa), inforegulator.org.za.

6.9 · What this service is not

These are the questions you arrive with. Every answer here restates something the page states in full above, and links to it.

1. 7.1When must I renew my firearm licence?At least 90 days before the licence expires: section 24(1) of the Firearms Control Act. Handed in later, while the licence is still valid, SAPS's own circular (27/5/2/1 of 3 February 2016) permits it, with reasons given. See 2.2.
2. 7.2What happens if my licence has already expired?It stops being a renewal. A lapsed licence is a fresh application, and the app says so before you download the pack, then asks you to confirm you know the renewal may not be lodged, and records that you did. See 2.2.
3. 7.3What goes into a renewal pack?Four documents are generated for you: the SAPS 518(a), the SAPS 517(g) where the competency renews alongside the licence, a renewal declaration, and a request for prior notice. You supply the rest: a certified copy of your identity document, proof of residence, photographs of the safe, the licence being renewed together with your competency certificate, and association and dedicated-status certificates where the section calls for them. The list is not fixed; the pack is built to what your answers require. See 2.2.
4. 7.4What goes into a first application?The motivation, which you write in your own words or, for a section 13 or 16 application, the app can assemble from your answers, and one document generated for you: the request for prior notice, which asks SAPS to tell you before refusing so you can answer first. The rest of the pack is built around those two — the SAPS 271 obtained at the counter, a certified copy of your identity document, proof of residence and employment, photographs of the safe, your competency and training certificates, character references, and association papers where the application needs them. See 2.1.
5. 7.5Does this submit my application to SAPS?No. The pack downloads as one file for you to print, sign in ink and hand in yourself. See 5.1 and 1.3.
6. 7.6Is this legal advice?No. No legal advice is given. This is not a law firm and nobody operating it acts as a legal practitioner. See 5.2.
7. 7.7Can I check on an application I have already lodged?Yes. Enter the reference SAPS give you and the app asks their public status enquiry how it is progressing, at most once a day, and shows you the answer with the date SAPS built it from. Nothing you enter is checked against SAPS records, and whether the application succeeds is theirs to decide. See 1.4 and 5.3.
8. 7.8Who can read the documents I upload?Nobody else. They are encrypted in your own browser under a key derived from your password, and the server stores ciphertext it cannot read. Some things are deliberately not encrypted. Unless you turn reminders off, it keeps the bare dates your renewals fall due — dates, whether each is a licence or a competency, and an internal reference id, never what the licence is or whose. And whatever the reminder setting, it keeps what the retention clock runs on: the day your account was last opened, the day the last licence recorded runs out, and whether an application is lodged and awaiting a decision. See 3.1 and 3.2.
9. 7.9I have been asked to sign a reference. Do I need an account?No. You will have had an email with the letter attached: print it, sign it in ink and return it to the applicant. Nothing is held about you beyond what the applicant entered. See 4.0.