GDPR / POPI
Introduction
The EU General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) came into force on 25 May 2018.
The new Regulation aims to standardise data protection laws and processing across the EU, giving people greater rights to access and control their personal information.
The Protection of Personal Information Act (or POPI Act) is South Africa’s equivalent of the EU GDPR
Our Commitment
Property Inspect are committed to ensuring protection of all personal information that we hold, and to provide and to protect all such data. We recognise our obligations in updating and expanding this program to meet the requirements of GDPR.
Property Inspect are dedicated to safeguarding the personal information under our control and in maintaining a system that meets our obligations under the new regulations. Our practice is summarised below.
How We Prepared for GDPR
Property Inspect already have a consistent level of data protection and security across our organisation, but we have introduced new measures to ensure compliancy.
Cyber Essentials – The Cyber Essentials scheme identifies five fundamental technical security controls that Property Inspect has implemented to help defend against the vast majority of Internet-borne threats. The scope of this certification covers the IT infrastructure currently used within Property Inspect servers, workstations, firewall hardware, anti-virus and software applications. All equipment within the scope of this assessment is at the office in Portsmouth, United Kingdom.
Information Audit – we carried out an audit of information previously held and ensured that it was compliant with the new regulations.
Policies and Procedures – we have revised data protection policies and procedures to meet the requirements and standards of the GDPR and any relevant data protection laws, including:
Data Protection – our main policy and procedure document for data protection has been revised to meet the standards and requirements of the GDPR. Accountability and governance measures are in place to ensure that we understand and adequately disseminate and evidence our obligations and responsibilities; with a dedicated focus on privacy and the rights of individuals.
Data Retention and Erasure – we have updated our retention policy and schedule to ensure that we meet the “data minimisation” and “storage limitation” principles and that personal information is stored, archived and destroyed in accordance with our obligations. We have procedures in place to meet the new “Right to Erasure” obligation.
Data Breaches – our procedures ensure that we have safeguards in place to identify, assess, investigate and report any personal data breach as early as possible. Our procedures have been explained all employees.
International Data Transfers and Third-Party Disclosures – where Property Inspect stores or transfers personal information outside the EU, we have robust procedures in place to secure the integrity of the data. Our procedures include a continual review of the countries with sufficient adequacy decisions, as well as binding rules, or standard data protection clauses for those countries without.
Privacy Policy
We have revised our Privacy Notice(s) to comply with the GDPR, ensuring that all individuals whose personal information we process have been informed of why we need it, how it is used, what their rights are, who the information is disclosed to and what safeguarding measures are in place to protect their information. Our Privacy Policy can be found HERE
Obtaining Consent – we have revised our consent mechanisms for obtaining personal data, ensuring that individuals understand what they are providing, why and how we use it and giving clear, defined ways to consent to us processing their information
Direct Marketing – we have revised the wording and processes for direct marketing, including clear opt-in mechanisms for marketing subscriptions; a clear notice and method for opting out and providing unsubscribe features on all subsequent marketing materials.
Processor Agreements – where we use any third-party to process personal information on our behalf (ie Payroll, Recruitment, Hosting, etc), we have drafted compliant Processor Agreements and due diligence procedures for ensuring that they meet and understand their/our GDPR obligations.
Data Subject Rights
We provide easy-to-access information via of an individual’s right to access any personal information that Property Inspect processes about them and to request information about:
- what personal data we hold about them
- the purposes of the processing
- the categories of personal data concerned
- the recipients to whom the personal data has/will be disclosed
- how long we intend to store your personal data for
- if we did not collect the data directly from them, information about the source
- the right to have incomplete or inaccurate data about them corrected or completed and the process for requesting this
- the right to request erasure of personal data (where applicable) or to restrict processing in accordance with data protection laws, as well as to object to any direct marketing from us and to be informed about any automated decision-making that we use
- the right to lodge a complaint or seek judicial remedy and who to contact in such instances
Information Security and Technical and Organisational Measures
Property Inspect takes the privacy and security of individuals and their personal information very seriously and take every reasonable measure to protect and secure the personal data that we process. We have robust information security policies and procedures in place to protect personal information from unauthorised access, alteration, disclosure or destruction.
If you have any questions about our GDPR compliance policies, please contact us support@propertyinspect.com
