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Your guide to what every website owner should know about the South African POPI Act.
Ok, so we’re building you an Awesome Ecommerce Site. It’s user-friendly, fast, and beautiful. Perfect for nudging your customer to fill their cart. Now what?
Before you can process the transaction, you’ll need some info. Like:
My Precious
The new Protection of Personal Information Act (POPI) says this personal information is categorised as precious goods and should be protected. This means one thing: your company has to be very, very careful.
You can be held accountable should you compromise or abuse this personal information. In fact, the consequence of non-compliance could result in 10 years in jail or fines of up to R10 million. As your website developers, we must put the right processes in place, and quickly.
Very few businesses are exempt. Even if your website is not an ecommerce site, POPI has implications for your business. If your business processes, keeps or shares information about customers (or employees) it has to comply.
They’re making it personal
Any information that can identify a person is deemed personal information. Demographic statistics and anonymous survey results don’t qualify.
However these do: photos, videos, contact information, biometric information (blood group etc), ID numbers, history (for example medical or criminal records, employment history and financial information).
You’re responsible
So, what’s required for your business to be compliant?
Firstly, when it comes to collecting and recording information, your website must:
Secondly, in terms of data storage, you must:
Keeping secrets
The Act is about responsibility, security, and consent. Here are 3 of the things we will do from our side to help make your business website compliant :
We can do it!
Your website must be developed to meet the stringent requirements of the POPI data privacy laws. And we only have until 1 July 2021 to get it done. Let’s get started!