POPI Act training for key employees may be the single most important way to ensure that a company is positioned to “understand” the implications of the POPI Act as it applies to its operations and to know what needs to be done to comply with the terms of the POPI Act, and even benefit from its provisions.
Why POPI Act training is important
There is no “one size fits all” solution for understanding and complying with the POPI Act, but understanding what POPI is all about will help companies to prepare for when POPI comes into force. The POPI Act is intended to uphold the right to privacy of both individuals and juristic persons (such as companies). It regulates, in a detailed manner, how personal information may be processed. Personal information is basically any information that relates to a person (no suprises there). The definition for processing is very wide and covers just about everything that one could dream of doing with personal information (whether by automated means or not). Thus, the so called “responsible parties”, namely those who determine the purpose and use of personal information are required to comply with POPI whenever they do anything with personal information.
What is lawful processing? Do we need POPI Act training for this too?
There are a number of conditions for lawful processing if personal information contained in the POPI Act. Each condition has a number of requirements and this is where the rubber really hits the road. Amongst many other requirement, companies need to understand firstly what personal information they process, what purposes they use the personal information for, and importantly, whether the consent of the data subject (the person to whom the personal information belongs) has consented. Companies also need to ensure that where personal information is stored with a third party (i.e. cloud based servers for example) the data subject’s consent has been obtained and the third party is bound to comply with the security provisions of the POPI Act.
Could we actually benefit, or is this just another compliance burden?
Another benefit of receiving POPI Act training is that you will be able to get a sense for how the provisions of the POPI Act can actually assist your business in being more competitive.
POPI Act training – something free for you so long
Here is a link to the presentation for POPI Act training that I offer Gunstons clients. Attending the POPI Act training is recommended, not only in order to better appreciate the implications of POPI for your business, but also to understand how to benefit from POPI and some of the opportunities that it affords companies.