POPI has been sent back to the drawing board
Polity reports that the National Assembly has referred the Protection of State Information Bill back to the ad hoc committee that drafted and reviewed it because of a failure of observe procedural rules.
Says Jacques van Wyk: director of labour and employment law at Werksmans Attorneys:
“The purpose of POPI is to give effect to the constitutional right to privacy by introducing measures to ensure the personal information of ‘data subjects’ (such as employees) is safeguarded when it is processed by ‘responsible parties’ (i.e. employers).
“Employers should be aware that most information collected from an employee will constitute ‘personal information’ as the term includes, for example, the employee’s pregnancy status, marital status, nationality, ethnic origin and sexual orientation.”
He concludes: “As the use of fingerprint and retina scanners becomes more common in the workplace, employers should take note that employees’ biometric information - such as fingerprints and retinal data - will also constitute personal information. Personal information would also include correspondence sent by the employee that is implicitly or explicitly of a private or confidential nature such as a personal e-mail.”
