Protecting your personal information
Every person has the constitutional right to privacy, which includes the protection against the unlawful dealing of his/her personal information.
The Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (“POPI”) aims to improve the protection of a person's personal information.
Personal information has a wide definition and basically refers to any identifiable information of a person, for example:
> name of a person (if disclosed with other personal information or if the name in itself would reveal personal information);
> addresses, e-mail address and any other contact details;
> race, gender, marital status, nationality or ethnicity, colour, sexual orientation, age, physical or mental health, religion, conscience, belief, culture, language;
> employment, criminal, medical financial and educational history;
> correspondence that is implicitly or explicitly of a private or confidential nature or further correspondence that would reveal the contents of the original correspondence.
When looking at the above definition, LegalWise stores some of your personal information on record as it was provided by you through the application process when you became a LegalWise Member.
LegalWise must comply with the provisions of POPI, which provides that personal information can only be processed (such as collecting, using, transferring and sharing) with your consent and for a specific purpose. When becoming a Member, you consent to your personal information being collected by LegalWise in order to gain access to our products and services.
A few examples of how LegalWise will process your personal information include:
> During a paralegal services matter, you may instruct us to use your personal information and to contact a third person in an attempt to resolve your legal dispute.
> When your matter is being referred to a network lawyer, your personal information will be shared with the lawyer in order for your claim to be dealt with accordingly.
> LegalWise may also use your information to contact you regarding changes or updates about your insurance product/s information in improving our product offering.
POPI further provides that personal information may not be kept for longer than is necessary to achieve the purpose for which it was collected. This technically means that as soon as there is no more purpose to keep the personal information, the personal information must be removed.
However, there are exceptions to this general rule and the following are examples of when POPI allows for personal information to be kept for longer if:
> consent was obtained to keep it longer than necessary;
> the law requires that the personal information should be kept for a certain period, for example, short-term insurance legislation requires that LegalWise must keep records for a period of five years;
> it is required in terms of a contract;
> there is a justifiable reason and/or the safeguards have been established to keep the personal information for historical, statistical or research purposes.
LegalWise is committed to protecting your privacy. Your information will be used properly, lawfully, securely and transparently for the purpose for which it is intended, namely, the administration and further maintenance of your insurance product/s. LegalWise has implemented appropriate technical and organisational information security measures to help keep your information secure, accurate and current.
You are entitled to:
1. Make enquiries about what personal information is processed by us,
2. request us to correct or update your personal information,
3. request us to delete your personal information,
4. as well as to object to the use of your personal information.
However, your requests will be subject to any legal requirements Legalise must comply with.
Please make use of the following avenues to lodge a request:
> Correct or update your personal information
- Contact LegalWise Member Administration on 0861 555 654.
- Use the LegalWise App.
- Send a message on WhatsApp.
> For all other queries relating to your personal information:
- Send an e-mail to popi-informationofficer@legalwise.co.za