In this podcast episode, Professor Donrich Thaldar discusses the meaning of ‘public interest’ in POPIA (the South African Protection of Personal Information Act) and its relevance to the research community.

Summary

‘Public interest’ is an important concept in POPIA. The criteria for being in the public interest that emerged in our case law are:

1. The ‘public’ can refer to any community in South Africa,


2. such a community must benefit as a collective


3. the benefit to the community can be indirect, and can coincide with direct benefit to an individual or a smaller section within the community.

However, the way in which public interest has been interpreted by the Information Regulator deviates from these well-established criteria. This deviation by the Information Regulator is problematic and should be rectified.

Further reading

Thaldar DW. Research and the meaning of ‘public interest’ in POPIA. South African Journal of Science. 2022.

See also

Thaldar DW, Townsend B. Exempting Health Research from the Consent Provisions of POPIA. Potchefstroom Electronic Law Journal. 2021.

Townsend BA, Thaldar DW. Navigating uncharted waters: biobanks and informational privacy in South Africa. South African Journal of Human Rights. 2019.

Thaldar DW, Townsend B. Protecting personal information in research: Is a code of conduct the solution? South African Journal of Science. 2021.

This podcast was made possible by a grant from the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health and the U.S. National Institutes of Health (award number U01MH127690) under the Harnessing Data Science for Health Discovery and Innovation in Africa (DS-I Africa) program. The content of this podcast is solely the responsibility of discussants of the podcast and does not necessarily represent the official views of the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health or the U.S. National Institutes of Health.