The POPI Act / Sections / Section 16
Section 16
Quality of information
Chapter 3 · Conditions for Lawful Processing · Condition 5 — Information Quality
(1) A responsible party must take reasonably practicable steps to ensure that the personal information is complete, accurate, not misleading and updated where necessary.
(2) In taking the steps referred to in subsection (1), the responsible party must have regard to the purpose for which personal information is collected or further processed.
Source: justice.gov.za — Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (official PDF) — cross-checked verbatim before publishing.
Beyond the text
What this means for your estate
- A resident register with outdated contact details, a former owner still listed as a levy-payer, or a visitor list with unverified entries are all information-quality failures, not just administrative untidiness.
- Subsection (2) sets a proportionate bar — “reasonably practicable” scales with the purpose, so a levy statement needs tighter accuracy than a general newsletter mailing list.
Relevant tool
PopiGuard prompts periodic data-accuracy reviews per register — so stale records get caught on a schedule, not by accident.