The PoPI Act: The impact on Digital Media and Marketing

Daily we all use websites, emails and social media. The most recent statistics form the global agency We Are Social has indicated that the average person in Southern Africa spends up to eight hours per day navigating through websites and social media platforms that continuously collect their personal data through every engagement.

If you keep this in mind, are you comfortable with really how much of your private and personal information is shared and how whether it is really secure.

The PoPI Act (Protection of Personal Information Act) is drawn up to protect the privacy and integrity of users/browsers personal and private information.

It is important to note that the PoPI Act is not only applicable on forms we manually fill in, but also any cookies we use on websites for analytics, advertising and any other form of integrations like chat boxes or pop-ups.

At Velocity Media we build websites that are compliant with all the requirements of the PoPI Act and that have a clear opt-in to the users. This acknowledges that they have given consent to the website (the business presented in the website) to collect, process and store their information. The business may also use their information for re-marketing, whether it be in email, sms or any other format. It is however imperative that these marketing avenues do offer the user/client an opt-out option.

The aftermath of any party not being compliant in terms of the PoPI Act is dire. It can lead to a maximum period of imprisonment of 10 years, or a hefty fine (of which is to be determined by the relevant court on a case-by-case basis) can be levied. If this is not bad enough the Regulator may institute fines up to an amount of R 10 million.

At Velocity Media we need to ensure that the websites we build are secure. We do so by making use of an SSL certificate, that act as an encryption tool to safeguard the user. We also ensure that we are compliant with the latest Google trend, which now indicates in the URL bar that a website is not secure.

We will also make place for a detailed cookie policy that will indicate who is collecting the information, what the purpose of the cookie is and what we intend to do with any information collected.
Lastly, we ensure that the website’s terms and conditions as well as the privacy policies cover all aspects and that they are clear and understandable, leaving no room for confusion on misinterpretation.

Velocity Media is willing to support our clients through the PoPI compliance process, it is an important transition that will secure all the users data and can provide the business with peace of mind that they are compliant will all the required regulations.