POPI and social media

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The purpose of the POPI Act is to ensure all South African institutions conduct themselves in a responsible manner when collecting, processing, storing and sharing another entity’s personal information by holding them accountable should they abuse or compromise personal information in any way.

Linda Graham from FinCommunications recently questioned how the rules of POPI apply when using social media for marketing as well as client service platforms. In her article she focusses on the details of how POPI in particular should impact your social media use.

“The main impact that POPI has on your social media activities is that all data collected from the various platforms is governed by the Act, even though the information was publicly available. If, for instance, you grab a client’s phone number from LinkedIn to implement his or her investment, you will be obliged to protect the data thereafter”, Linda shares.

Click here to read her article about a few of the ways in which POPI impacts social media.