Why do we need POPIA?

We live in a digital world where our identities, transactions, choices, opinions and preferences are stored and processed on and between a multitude of platforms. Gone are the days of paper and the comfort of removal or destruction of copies to protect us. Digital systems uses production data with backup copies. Data systems are backed up daily, monthly and archived, creating more copies. There are copies of copies of our data and these are never deleted, removed or destroyed!  It is not all doom and gloom as most of the data is used to render services and to protect us.

It is when data is sold and abused when we suffer and that is where the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 comes in. POPIA, in line with international privacy trends was drafted to protect us.