The POPI Act / Sections / Section 30
Section 30
Authorisation concerning data subject's trade union membership
Chapter 3 · Conditions for Lawful Processing ยท Part B, Special Personal Information
(1) The prohibition on processing personal information concerning a data subject's trade union membership, as referred to in section 26, does not apply to the processing by the trade union to which the data subject belongs or the trade union federation to which that trade union belongs, if such processing is necessary to achieve the aims of the trade union or trade union federation.
(2) In the cases referred to under subsection (1), no personal information may be supplied to third parties without the consent of the data subject.
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
- Scoped to processing by the trade union itself, not by an employer, an estate that employs unionised staff (security, maintenance) doesn't get a general exception to process union-membership data; this section authorises the union's own processing, not the estate's.
Relevant tool
If your estate employs unionised staff, PopiGuard's Personal Information Register still treats union-membership data as special/restricted on the employer side, this exception doesn't extend to you.