Johannesburg, 11 May 2011
South Africa will get an information regulator, which can govern what people post online about other citizens, when the Protection of Personal Information Bill becomes law, says a market commentator.
The Bill is expected to become law later this year. It is being debated by the National Assembly, with further briefings scheduled this month and in June.
Thav Reddy, head of Nedbank's personal information office, says the Bill will create the office of a regulator, which will be able to lobby for privacy controls on social networking sites. The regulator will also be able to monitor PC use and report its findings back to Parliament, she says.
Reddy was speaking at ITWeb's Security Summit, in Sandton, yesterday. She said there is no escaping social media, but the consequences of online postings can negatively affect people's lives. “Social media is here to stay.”
SA is confused about how to regulate the online world, noted Reddy. She said regulation is vital, because social networking is becoming a virtual world. Online publication can negatively affect people in the real world as information is readily available to prospective employers, for example.
Reddy argued that people should have the right to reinvent themselves online every decade. There must be a way to allow individuals to set up guidelines to govern what can be posted about them online, she proposed. “Too much information is available to too many people.”
Although celebrities can get injunctions to stop the press printing their indiscretions, it's all but impossible to stop this sort of information from being tweeted, explained Reddy. It's expensive to go to court to stop publication, she added.
The regulator must enforce the privacy of South Africans on the Internet, she noted.
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