ENSafrica Privacy In Brief - Issue 8 | 2020-02

newsflash

The commencement date of POPIA is no April Fool's joke

• the Chairperson of the Information Regulator, Advocate Pansy Tlakula, recently sent a request to President Cyril Ramaphosa to declare that the remaining provisions of the Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013 ("POPIA") commence on 1 April 2020 ("commencement date").
• it is expected that the president will act on this request. A responsible party (ie, a public or private body or any other person which, alone or in conjunction with others, determines the purpose of and means for processing personal information) will then be given a one year transitional period after the commencement date to comply with its provisions. That means that organisations will have to be POPIAcompliant by 31 March 2021.