Following Business Unity South Africa’s (BUSA) request for an extension of compliance with section 57 of the POPI Act, the Information Regulator has decided to extend the commencement date of POPIA to 1 February 2022.
This means that any workshop busy with processing personal information which is subject to prior authorisation can continue to do so for the next seven months. The Regulator, meanwhile, will continue to process applications. Prior authorisation is required if you intend to use the information for any purpose besides that which was originally intended at the time it was collected, or if you intend to combine the information with other information processed by additional responsible parties.
Please note that the extension is intended to give the Regulator more time to process applications, and does not represent a blanket waiver of compliance for responsible parties. Furthermore, parties must continue to ensure that their applications for prior authorisation are submitted timeously, and must comply with all other provisions of POPIA.
If you have not yet applied for prior authorisation, it is advised that you wait until the Regulator provides further information on how it will deal with information security measures to assess applications. We will inform you of new developments in this regard as soon as possible.
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