Data Protection in South Africa: Privacy Law, Rights and Compliance

Every organisation in South Africa handles personal information about customers, employees, patients, pupils or members of the public. This course explains South Africa’s data protection law in practical terms for the organisations that decide how information is used (responsible parties) and the suppliers that handle it for them (operators), such as payroll bureaus, IT and cloud providers and call centres.

It covers the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA), its amended Regulations, the Information Regulator’s role and related laws such as PAIA, with practical South African examples. The focus is on principles that do not change: a lawful basis before processing, transparency, minimisation, security by design, accountability with evidence, and the rights of the people the information is about.

Fines, response times and other figures are shown as 2026 examples and are expected to change. All of them are collected in a dated reference table at the end of the course. Always confirm any figure with the Information Regulator or a qualified adviser before you act.

What you will learn

• How POPIA, PAIA and the Information Regulator fit together
• The Information Officer’s registration and duties, prior authorisation and the accountability records to keep
• The eight conditions, lawful grounds, special and children’s information, notices and direct marketing
• How to handle rights requests, run impact assessments and govern data protection
• How to secure information, respond to security compromises, manage operators and handle cross-border transfers
• How to handle employee data, CCTV, websites and AI tools, and how complaints, enforcement and penalties work

Who it is for

Compliance officers, Information Officers and their deputies, HR, IT and security staff, marketing and customer-service staff, managers and business owners, and suppliers that process personal information for clients.

How the course works

There are five modules, each with four lessons and a short quiz. You need 70% on each quiz to complete the course and earn your certificate.