Securing POPIA Data Protection Agreements

With the recent enforcement of the Protection of Personal Information Act (PoPIA) in South Africa, many businesses have been struggling with the logistics around getting PoPIA data protection agreements back from clients, legally signed. This puts organisations at exceptional risk and can result in various serious consequences.

“This is a dire challenge that companies are facing at present,” explains Steven Moriarty, Sales Manager at Impression Signatures. According to Moriarty, it is imperative that businesses not only receive these PoPIA client data protection agreements back timeously, but that they are also executed in a legally sound manner (even when signed electronically), and in the right format.

Thankfully, in today’s digital age, business leaders have the advantage of cutting-edge technology and software solutions that address these needs. Moriarty has outlined and detailed the tried and tested methods to ensure the return of these documents in good order. He outlines the agreements from clients as follows:

It is imperative that organisations take advantage of the digital signature solutions available. This enables fast and effective signing of documents in a way that is reliable, traceable, and secure.

Within the current remote working landscape, it is imperative that the PoPIA document is developed, delivered, signed, and returned in a digital format – without sacrificing the chain of custody, or impacting on the legality of the signatures obtained. “Due to the highly confidential quality of the information being provided it is essential that the most secure and reliable solutions are being utilised throughout the entire process,” says Moriarty.  

Response-handling, management, and reporting. “Has proven consistently difficult for many businesses. Up until now the onus has been on the business, but here the response from the client becomes vital. Organisations need the necessary support to ensure that they receive a timeous response and that, response is effectively managed and reported, implementing these into secure progress dashboards and insightful reporting.”

With the help of advanced technology, these processes become seamless and automated, allowing for a quick, efficient, and struggle free experience. “Putting the right processes and solutions in place ensures data protection agreements can easily be dispatched to all clients to be signed electronically, and automatically returned with response handling. This makes the process easy, efficient, and remarkably secure,” concludes Moriarty.    

For more advice on how to secure signed data protection agreements from clients, please contact Steven Moriarty directly at stevenm@impression.cloud.

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About Impression Signatures

Founded in 2011, Impression Signatures (an iOCO company) is the leading provider of e-signature solutions in South Africa. Our patented approach is locally created whilst committing to making this innovative technology available to the public enabling true social inclusion to fully realize digital transformation in South Africa.