Protection of personal information (POPI)

The Personal Information Act, 4 of 2013 (POPIA) has come into effect 1 July 2021. The content of the Act can be found on the dedicated POPIA website.

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What is POPIA? In Europe ‘EU GDPR’ deals with general data protection regulation. POPIA is similar in South Africa. It serves to protect privacy and personal information. In order for organisations to operate it is unavoidable to collect and process personally identifiable data. Since data can be abused governments seek ways to regulate its use. At Coram Deo we are fully in support of POPIA.

The purpose of the POPI Act is to —

  • Give effect to the constitutional right to privacy, by safeguarding personal information when processed by a responsible party, subject to justifiable limitations that are aimed at—
  •  balancing the right to privacy against other rights, particularly the right of access to information; and protecting important interests, including the free flow of information within the Republic and across international borders;
  • Regulate the manner in which personal information may be processed, by establishing conditions, in harmony with international standards, that prescribe the minimum threshold requirements for the lawful processing of personal information;
  • Provide persons with rights and remedies to protect their personal information from processing that is not in accordance with this Act;
  • Establish voluntary and compulsory measures, including the establishment of an Information Regulator, to ensure respect for and to promote, enforce and fulfil the rights protected by this Act.

People who join our community often become family and they journey with us over a number of years. Our audience is everything but typical which makes it more difficult to explain our information use across different audiences in a general way. The bottom line of how we use information of those in our community (clients, lecturers, counsellors, course attendees, accreditation partners and more) is that we use it to serve them and their reason for engaging Coram Deo.

General use of information: Information is used internally and is not given* or sold to third-parties. Information is used at a functional level by staff who need to work with it.

*Sharing of information: Information is given where needed, only to trusted affiliates (such as lecturers, counsellors) in order to manage the relationship with students and clients for the purpose of what they themselves reached out for. All helping or consulting type relationships (like counselling) are also bound by ethics of anonymity, non-identifiable and non-maleficence. It is regarded as a serious matter should it come to light that trusted affiliates have used information in contravention of Popia as this implicates Coram Deo.

Communication platforms:

  • Student and other WhatsApp groups that have been created by any of our personnel are made aware that some information is known to the rest of the group due to the way the technology works. The group members are requested not to act on information other than for the purpose the group was created for and as a means of rapid communication between Coram Deo and group members.
  • Our email subscription lists have been reengaged and urged to unsubscribe should they wish not to receive information from Coram Deo. Email subscribers, subscribe themselves or in the past have given permission in a number of ways to be subscribed to email lists to receive correspondence in this way.
  • In our normal email, community members receive correspondence in order to facilitate their learning and role in the community.
  • On social media channels students follow, like, subscribe/unsubscribe themselves and are in charge of what is publicly displayed via their permission settings.
  • On our Narrative Academy website, community members are in charge of their information. Coram Deo sets access to certain functionality based on the intention of the group.
  • Coram Deo’s email and document services provider is Google Workplace where access is set based on who needs to work with it.

POPIA was, and is, our invitation to step in a little closer to make sure that your information is dealt with ethically. If you feel that your information is not dealt with in a way that honours our relationship we would like to hear about it and remedy the situation.

Our information officer is our managing director, Dr Elmo Pienaar. Please reach out through the contact page. We’re happy to share more about how we use information and implement POPIA (keeping, deleting, updating) across different audiences.