Who should be registered as an Information Officer?

Information Officers are, by virtue of their positions, appointed automatically in terms of PAIA and POPIA. Information Officers of public and private bodies must designate and/or delegate any power or duty to Deputy Information Officers, as necessary to make the body as accessible as reasonably possible.

Registering Information Officers

The Information Officers are required, in terms of Section 55(2) of POPIA, to take up their duties only after being registered with the Regulator. The registration of Information Officers can be done on the Regulator’s E-Services Portal

Your duties as the Information officer

Section 55(1) of POPIA sets out the duties and responsibilities of an Information Officer which include the following:-

• the encouragement of compliance by the Body with the conditions for the lawful processing of personal information.

an Information Officer may develop a policy on how employees should implement the eight (8) conditions for the lawful processing of personal information or consider issuing a circular in the case of provincial and national departments;

• dealing with requests made to the Body pursuant to POPIA.
• working with the Regulator in relation to investigations conducted pursuant to Chapter 6 of POPIA in relation to the body
• ensuring compliance by a body with the provisions of POPIA

The additional duties and responsibilities of the Information Officers, in terms of regulation 4 of POPIA, are to ensure that

• a compliance framework is developed, implemented, monitored and maintained;
• a personal information impact assessment is done to ensure that adequate measures and standards exist in order to comply with the conditions for the lawful processing of personal information;
• manual is developed, monitored, maintained and made available as prescribed in sections 14 and 51 of PAIA, as amended;
• internal measures are developed together with adequate systems to process requests for information or access thereto;
• internal awareness sessions are conducted regarding the provisions of POPIA, regulations made in terms of POPIA, codes of conduct, or information obtained from the Regulator; and
• upon request by any person, copies of the manual are provided to that person upon the payment of a fee to be determined by the Regulator from time to time..