HOW POPIA AFFECTS YOUR CYBER SECURITY

According to Accenture, South Africa has the third most cybercrime victims worldwide, losing R2.2 billion a year, highlighting the need for legislative means to counteract this problem. The Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 consists of 12 Chapters and 115 sections, showing how stringent data collection is in South Africa. The comprehensive privacy regime inspired by the European GDPR came into play in 2021 and did so to address the pressing issue of how companies process personal information by setting up new rules for regulating the integrity and confidentiality of personal information. Businesses who did not comply by 30 June 2021 faced penalties and sanctions – barriers that would hinder their communication activities.

79% of organisations experienced disruptions, financial loss or other setbacks due to a lack of cyber preparedness in 2020. POPIA not only seeks to protect consumers from the vulnerabilities of cyberattacks, but businesses too. Organisations that comply with regulations protect themselves by ensuring that their data is kept safe and risk free from any harmful influencers that may threaten it. In protecting consumer and employee information, organisations get to build on their data safety frameworks, ensuring that they have a holistic approach and are up-to-date with the legislative measures, alleviating any barriers such as penalties that could be imposed on them due to failure of compliance.

 

The POPIA founding principles: 

Accountability

Processing limitation

Purpose specification

Further processing limitation

Information quality

Openness

Security Safeguards and

Data subject participation

 

Closely resemble those of the PDPA in Singapore or PDPO in Hong Kong – countries that are leaders in technological advancements. This shows that South Africa, as a developing third world country, is moving in the right direction. Section 19 of POPIA provides an extensive set of cybersecurity and data protection duties for responsible organisations – also known as data controllers and handlers. Integrity and confidentiality of personal information must be controlled by businesses that have access to them, Organisations therefore must ensure that they identify foreseeable internal and external risks that exist within their business, establish and maintain preventative measures against the identified risks, to ensure that the safeguards are in place and updated regularly.

 

All the above is part of an organisation’s Cyber Security Policy that we can help execute in the form of our data cloud management services. As industry leaders in data cloud management, we’re well versed in data safety, ensuring that all our clients, however unique, receive tailor-made service offerings that speak to the direct needs of the business. While you consolidate your data, we assist in providing the security for your cloud storage, ensuring that your data is kept safe. It is worthwhile to note that businesses that need help to be POPIA compliant must enlist the help of a POPIA or data security specialist, to avoid complications that may harm the integrity of the business. Acquiring a cyber security expert can also help reduce the vulnerabilities that exist within data protection, especially if your business requires multiple employees to access private information.