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ADManager Plus helps you comply with POPIA

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Compliance Reports
 

What is POPIA?

Compliance regulations are crucial for developing a strong cybersecurity plan in organizations. Regulations are often established to protect data and ensure that other security policies are in place. With cyberattacks rising steadily over the past few years, different regulations, like the GDPR, the PCI DSS, and SOX have been brought forth by governments.

The Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) is regulation mandated by the South African government. It is similar to the EU's GDPR in the way it protects personal data. POPIA regulates how organizations work with personal data and holds them accountable for their use and misuse of data.

Why is POPIA important?

  • Your organization must comply with POPIA if it operates in South Africa POPIA applies to organizations operating in South Africa; it also pertains to organizations that process personal data in South Africa but are not actually domiciled there.
  • POPIA compliance is mandatory for organizations that hold or process data about South African citizens POPIA is a comprehensive mandate that has a wide scope, applying to any information that can be used to identify a person, including full name, address, phone number, and religious or political views.
  • POPIA mandates that breaches in your organization are disclosed As soon as a data breach is discovered, it must be reported to the Information Regulator and the concerned individuals.
  • POPIA non-compliance can result in legal action against your organizationThis can include fines up to R10 million or even prison.

What are POPIA requirements?

POPIA guidelines have a few core principles that pertain to the processing of personal information. The important points for IT administrators of any organization to focus on include:

Processing limitation

Personal information should be processed lawfully, and individuals must give their consent for their information to be processed. The information collected should be minimal and justifiable based on the purpose of collection.

Accountability

The organization must appoint an information officer who is responsible for ensuring that the organization is complying with the information protection principles of POPIA.

Purpose of collecting information

The personal information collected should be purpose-specific, and the person whose data is being collected should be informed of the purpose while giving their consent.

Accuracy of information collected

The collected information should always be complete, lawfully collected and processed, and updated whenever necessary to ensure information is accurate.

Security safeguards

The organization that collects the personal information is accountable for controlling, securing, and maintaining the integrity of the personal information in its control through organization-wide protocols and controls for data access and processing.

Data subject participation

Organizations have to adopt a process that allows data subjects to verify whether the organization holds personal information about them, request a description of such information, and request that the organization delete their information due to consent withdrawal or data inaccuracy.

How to comply with POPIA requirements using ADManager Plus

POPIA puts South Africa’s data regulation standards on par with existing data protection laws around the world. It aims to protect personal information, enforce individuals’ rights to privacy, and provide guidelines for lawfully processing sensitive information and notifying regulators and data subjects in the event of a breach.

ADManager Plus helps organizations comply with POPIA by letting them:

  • Assign folder permissions based on user roles to ensure authorized access to sensitive data.
  • Add extra details to user accounts in Active Directory, such as the source and purpose of employee information.
  • Quickly delete all sensitive data when a user is disabled or deleted using customizable policies.
  • Grant or modify folder permissions after reviewing and approving access requests from authorized users.
  • Easily identify users and groups with access to sensitive data, track the source and purpose of user information, monitor permission changes, and review audit trails.
  • Automate time-bound folder access permissions, send reports to stakeholders and compliance teams, and periodically remove inactive users and their associated data.
  • Enable efficient searches based on attribute values to facilitate data access requests for audits or investigations.

ADManager Plus has several other reports that can help with complying with POPIA.

S.No Section Number How ADManager Plus helps
1 Section 10:

Personal information must be adequate, relevant, and not excessive for its intended purpose.

Use the following reports to demonstrate that the required technical and organizational measures are in place:
2 Section 11 (4):

If a data subject objects to the processing of personal information, it must be discontinued.

3 Section 14 (1):

Personal information records should not be retained longer than necessary for the purpose it was collected or processed.

Section 14 (2):

Records can be retained beyond the necessary period for historical, statistical, or research purposes with appropriate safeguards.

Section 14 (4):

Records must be destroyed, deleted, or de-identified when no longer authorized to retain them.

Section 14 (6):

Processing of personal information must be restricted by the responsible party.

4 Section 15 (1):

Further processing of personal information should align with the original purpose of collection.

5 Section 16 (1):

The responsible party should ensure the accuracy, completeness, and updated nature of personal information.

6 Section 17:

Documentation of all processing operations must be maintained by the responsible party.

7 Section 19 (1):

Measures should be taken to secure the integrity, confidentiality, and protection of personal information.

Section 19 (2):

Identification of risks and establishment of appropriate safeguards for personal information is required.

8 Section 22 (2):

Breach notifications should include necessary measures to assess the extent of the compromise and restore system integrity.

9 Section 24 (1):

Data subjects may request the correction or deletion of their personal information in possession of the responsible party.

10 Section 26:

Processing of sensitive personal information is generally prohibited unless authorized by specific sections of POPI Act.

A three-step approach to ensure that the major POPIA requirements are met

A unified approach to information security compliance ensures organizations not only address identified risks but also comply with the law. Further, having a solution like ADManager Plus, which allows you to manage access to data and offers prepackaged, compliance-specific reports, enables you to stay compliant with not just POPIA but other regulations like HIPAA, SOX, the GDPR, and the PCI DSS.

The following steps explains how your organization can become POPIA compliant.

Identify which provisions of POPIA apply to your company.

The first step in the process is to determine the sections of POPIA that apply to your organization. This depends on factors like the nature of your company, the type of business your company participates in, and the information that you store and process.

Establish protocols for user data processing.

The next step is to develop protocols for how data is processed in your organization, including who does the processing. It's important to secure personal data from unauthorized processing and access,—not just from cyberattacks but also from insiders.

Keep an eye on the data being processed and the people involved in processing.

Maintaining compliance requires focused monitoring of the established protocols and data. Organizations that are accustomed to traditional approaches of information security compliance may focus on annual audits and find it difficult to implement the processes necessary to support sustained compliance.

Benefits of using ADManager Plus to comply with POPIA

  • Streamline and automate user account management, ensuring efficient and accurate creation, modification, and disabling of accounts, reducing unauthorized access.
  • Enhance security by securing file and folder permissions of AD group memberships to adhere to the principle of least privilege.
  • Track user activities and logon information, facilitating compliance and incident investigation. Generate custom and comprehensive reports.
  • Refine data accuracy requirements by automating the process for accurate and consistent personal information across systems.
  • Enforce role-based delegation for separation of duties, reducing the risk of unauthorized access and promoting accountability.

Other compliance mandates

Meet POPIA compliance audit needswith ADManager Plus

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