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The importance of a privacy policy for your
business

April 2018

“I’ve been working with developers to take my business online. They have
advised me to make sure I have a proper privacy policy drawn up for my
website. Is this really necessary or can I just use a standard one from the
Commercial In an era where personal information is collected, shared, and sold to third
internet?”

parties for commercial gain or benefit, often without the knowledge or consent
of the consumers, people want to know how their personal information will be
handled by businesses and to whom and for what purposes such information
will be transferred. Transparency in the use and protection of data establishes
trust between a business and the public it wishes to engage with.

A privacy policy explains to the public how your business collects personal
information and data, how such information will be used and stored, what it is
used for and how, and with whom such information will be shared and for what
purpose.

A privacy policy on your website will allow users of the website to make an
informed decision as to whether to use your website or refrain from doing so.

It should be noted that the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013
(which has been signed into law but has not yet come fully into effect) (“POPI”)
should be factored into the formulation of an appropriate privacy policy for
your business. In terms of POPI, reasonable practical steps (through for example
a privacy policy) must be taken to ensure that data subjects (the persons
whose personal information is processed by your business) are aware of who is
processing their personal information, why such information is being processed
and whether the supply of the information is voluntary or mandatory. POPI
further requires responsible parties to inform data subjects of the nature and
category of personal information that you collect from them.
A proper privacy policy for your online business should be constructed to be
read together with the terms and conditions of use of your website, as well
as your access to information manual (required in terms of the Promotion of
Access to Information Act 2 of 2000).

As this is a specialist area, we support the recommendation of your developer
to engage the support of a data specialist or POPI expert to assist you in
developing a tailored privacy policy for your business. This is a far better and
appropriate way to establish trust with your consumers than just copying an
example from the internet.

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