The Information Regulator has published the following notice on the website: The commencement date of section 58(2) of the Protection of Personal Information Act No 4 of 2013 (“the Act”) has been amended to 1 February 2022 (Government Notice 297 published in Government Gazette No 44383 of 1 April 2021).

This date shall become applicable to processing information referred to in section 57 of the Act.

POPIA Section 57 extension and what does it mean for your business?

The POPIA deadline has not been extended. Please note that the extension is only applicable to the implementation of section 57, which talks to prior authorization from the Information Regulator for the processing of certain information.

What does this mean?

1. Any responsible party needs to obtain prior consent when processing any unique identifiers for a purpose other than for which it was collected and with the aim of linking the information together with other information that the responsible party is processing.
2. Processing information with regards to criminal conduct or unlawful conduct, for example criminal checks.
3. Processing information for the purpose of credit reporting, for example credit checks.
4. Transferring special information (for example children’s information) to a 3rd party in a foreign country. Responsible parties can apply for an extension until February 2022 to obtain the necessary authorization from the Information Regulator.

To clarify this notice the grace period has not been extended and this notice relates to responsible parties that need to apply to the Information Regulator for prior authorisation to process personal information.

Telephone: +27 31 570 5465; Email: shannon.budhram@gb.co.za