What To Know About South Africa’s POPI Act

POPI ACT (protection of personal information act) came into full effect on 1 July 2021 and requires all business and institutions who are custodians of private information to implement the right measures to protect that information.

Why is the POPIA act necessary?
Recent major data breaches in the U.S exposed vital data and highlighted the dangers involved when not enough data protection measures are implemented.

If private data gets into the wrong hands like malicious hackers, it can be used to potentially steal banking information or execute ransomware attacks.

The POPIA act is there to protect citizens from undue exposure to their personal information. It not only protects users but also trusts and companies especially third-parties that are in might be in business with each other.

What is Personal information?
It is any piece of information that can be used to identify a person such as their identity or passport numbers, date of birth, age, phone numbers, email address and any financial information.

What does POPIA protect me against?
* It wards off unwanted marketing information so that your data such as email addresses or contact details will not be involved in forced or pesky and unwanted marketing campaigns.
* It prevents unwanted public exposure of private data without your consent, and can be used as a basis for legal action in case such unwarranted exposure occurs.
* The act highlights legal implications when your private information is deleted or transferred without your consent.

It is important to note that it does not matter the size of your business. Everyone comply with POPIA and failure to do so will lead to fines up to R10 million.

Is your business truly compliant?

Here are a few things to consider as far as compliance with the act is concerned.

* Are you collecting personal information?
* Are you collecting information from contact us forms on your website?
* Do you have a POPIA privacy policy?

Please ensure you are POPIA compliant. In order to add that extra level of protection for your business, partners and customers.

We strongly recommend that you add https://popiactplugin.co.za to your website.  It is a POPIA app plugin notifier which will let your visitors know that you are POPIA compliant and that you care about their personal information.