POPI is here - Are you ready?
Whenever a patient sees a doctor or a specialist or submits a claim, they are required to hand over sensitive personal information. At this stage in South Africa, even without your knowledge, the information you generate is being processed by entities that you may have never interacted with.
Data protection laws must be put in place to protect how Personal Information is used and handled, and it is for this reason that the POPI Act is relevant and so important. It empowers individuals to take back control of their Personal Information and protect it from abuse.
Once the Act is made effective, companies will be given a year’s grace period to comply with the Act, unless this grace period is extended. From that point forward, you may face immense fines if found to be non-compliant.
In South Africa, the right to privacy is constitutional. POPI may give practical effect to the more theoretical right as contained in the Constitution. The POPI Act now brings South Africa in line with and is based on many of the core principles of data protection laws around the world.
We have developed a range of templates that may be obtained directly from our website. These templates offer the benefit of immediate download, with placeholders in the template for you to populate with practice-specific information. The aforementioned generic templates also all comply with POPI, PAIA and the Consumer Protection Act.
Similar to the IT-related policies discussed above we also have generic website terms and conditions, privacy policies, and disclaimers. No health care practitioner, service provider or administrator with an online presence should chance being without these policies.
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