How the Popi Act helps you

With the Protection of Personal Information Act in full swing and the reversal of the recent decision of Basic Education to not have Gr 12 results published, has again highlighted the question of what the Act entails.

According to a local lawyer, Gert Ehlers, the purpose of the Act is to protect the personal information, as defined in the Act itself, of individuals and to some extent the personal information of juristic persons.

“We are talking about personal information of people gathered, processed and stored by a business or entity that is protected under Popia. The Act came into effect after the legislator felt that the personal information of South African data needed protection against harm and abuse.”

He says the general rule is that no personal information or any data subject may be published without such data subject’s prior consent.

This does not include information that was published by the data subjects itself, which means if someone publishes their own personal information they are allowing anyone who makes use of the platform it was published on, to freely make use of their information.

“If a data subject (person) publishes his residential address on social media platforms, such data subject should not be able to rely on Popia to avoid the address being published by a media house. Every entity that gathers, processes and stores personal information must theoretically put extra measures in place to protect such data and must comply with the provisions of Popia. Theoretically, businesses should make minor changes to the process and protocol of getting access to and or handling personal information,” he advises.