A courtroom showdown is looming between the Department of Basic Education and the Information Regulator over the release of matric results in newspapers.
Last month, the IR slapped the department with an enforcement notice, prohibiting the publication of matric results on public forums including newspapers and the school bulletin board without consent form parents and learners, who are 18 years and older.
The regulator says the publication of such results, without consent, breaches Section 11 of the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA), which mandates lawful processing of personal data and emphasises the need for informed consent.
The IR says instead of being published, results must be given to students individually to ensure their privacy is maintained, including obtaining the results directly from the school or receiving them via SMS.
The DBE has now filed court papers to challenge this directive, saying they have followed and will continue to follow all steps, according to the law, when publishing the results.
“There are several grounds for the department to challenge this in court, the first one being that the high court had already issued an order that we could proceed in 2022” said Department spokesperson Elijah Mhlanga.
“We feel that the release of results in the newspapers in the current format where we use exam numbers is sufficient because it doesn’t identify a specific person” added Mhlanga.
“We also feel like we have done what we needed to do as a department to look into what the POPI ACT requires us to do and believe that what we are proceeding with is legal based on the ground that we outlined in the court papers filed on Friday” said Mhlanga.
Mhlanga added that marking was completed on Friday and capturing will be done in a day or two, thereafter the process of quality assurance will be done and data will be handed to UMALUSI.
Candidates will receive their results on the 14th of January.