Data Protection in the Internet:
South Africa
Lukman Adebisi Abdulrauf
1 Introduction
In line with global best practice, South Africa has an organized legal framework for
the protection of personal information. This comprises of the South African Constitution and a host of other legislation and regulations. The most notable among the
legislation is the Protection of Personal Information Act (hereinafter, ‘POPI Act’ or
‘the Act’) No 4 of 2013 which was only recently enacted by the South African
legislature.
1 This legislation established the Information Regulator which is the
institutional framework responsible for implementing the provisions of the POPI
Act. This chapter seeks to assess the extent to which personal data is protected on the
internet in South Africa. It will therefore focus largely on the provisions of the POPI
Act since it is the omnibus data protection framework in the country.
The chapter is divided into five sections. After the introduction, Sect. 2 gives a
general background into the data protection framework in South Africa. Here, a brief
overview is carried out of the key legislation which comprises the data protection
framework on South Africa. The section also analyses the key provisions of the main
data protection legislation in South Africa—the POPI Act. Section 3 focuses on the
supervisory structure of data protection in South Africa. A brief discussion is carried
This work is based on the research supported by the South African Research Chairs Initiative of the
Department of Science and Technology and National Research Foundation of South Africa
(Grant No 98338).
1 Protection of Personal Information (POPI) Act, No 4 of 2013. Also available at http://www.justice.
gov.za/legislation/acts/2013-004.pdf.
L. A. Abdulrauf (*)
Department of Public Law, South African Research Chair in International Constitutional Law,
University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
D. Moura Vicente, S. de Vasconcelos Casimiro (eds.), Data Protection in the
Internet, Ius Comparatum – Global Studies in Comparative Law 38,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28049-9_14
349
South Africa
Lukman Adebisi Abdulrauf
1 Introduction
In line with global best practice, South Africa has an organized legal framework for
the protection of personal information. This comprises of the South African Constitution and a host of other legislation and regulations. The most notable among the
legislation is the Protection of Personal Information Act (hereinafter, ‘POPI Act’ or
‘the Act’) No 4 of 2013 which was only recently enacted by the South African
legislature.
1 This legislation established the Information Regulator which is the
institutional framework responsible for implementing the provisions of the POPI
Act. This chapter seeks to assess the extent to which personal data is protected on the
internet in South Africa. It will therefore focus largely on the provisions of the POPI
Act since it is the omnibus data protection framework in the country.
The chapter is divided into five sections. After the introduction, Sect. 2 gives a
general background into the data protection framework in South Africa. Here, a brief
overview is carried out of the key legislation which comprises the data protection
framework on South Africa. The section also analyses the key provisions of the main
data protection legislation in South Africa—the POPI Act. Section 3 focuses on the
supervisory structure of data protection in South Africa. A brief discussion is carried
This work is based on the research supported by the South African Research Chairs Initiative of the
Department of Science and Technology and National Research Foundation of South Africa
(Grant No 98338).
1 Protection of Personal Information (POPI) Act, No 4 of 2013. Also available at http://www.justice.
gov.za/legislation/acts/2013-004.pdf.
L. A. Abdulrauf (*)
Department of Public Law, South African Research Chair in International Constitutional Law,
University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
D. Moura Vicente, S. de Vasconcelos Casimiro (eds.), Data Protection in the
Internet, Ius Comparatum – Global Studies in Comparative Law 38,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28049-9_14
349