Voters’ privacy must be protected as election approaches
Political parties need to know their legal obligations when using our personal data to campaign
The Protection of Personal Information Act (Popia) applies to the processing of information, by automated and non-automated means. This includes political parties. The planning, implementation and management of elections necessarily involves the processing of voters’ personal information, and thus Popia is automatically invoked. Data subjects receive not only calls and SMS messages but at times e-mails from various political organisations. The question then becomes, where did the political party get one’s personal information? Who gave the party permission to use a person’s personal information? When was consent received as envisaged by Popia? More importantly, why is it that political organisations want to know how and whether we wish to exercise the right to vote at all? At the heart of the debate is the fact that the voters roll is a public document in SA that can be accessed by any political affiliation and any person at the mere payment of a fee. The voters roll contains import...
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