Storage, Retention and Deletion of documents containing personal information

Connect has an obligation, in terms of POPIA, to ensure that personal information is not stored for longer than is necessary. This means that we must delete personal information wherever it is stored as soon as possible after: 

• the expiry of the relevant retention period; 
• we are no longer authorised to retain the records; and/or 
• the personal information has served the purpose for which we collected it. 

In this article we are focusing on the storage, retention and deletion of documents containing personal information.

What YOU can do: 

1. Take the time to clean up your workspace and maintain a ‘clean desk policy’. This means scanning and saving hard copy documents electronically, shredding hard copies that are no longer needed and tidying up the electronic documents in your desktop folders on your laptop.
2. Documents should only be stored in the approved Connect locations (e.g. secure company servers and locked filing cabinets at the office). If you have any hard copy documents in unapproved locations (e.g., at home, in your car boot, in a box under your desk), please make sure to regularly bring these documents to office for secure filing or shredding. 
3. Go fully electronic and do away with the need to store hard copy documents if this is possible for your work. 
4. Don’t file electronic copies unnecessarily. Try maintaining an organised filing system to avoid repeated filing of the same document in too many different locations.  
5. Read the Connect Privacy Policies and POPIA Documents.

If you are ever uncertain about the best practices when it comes to storage, retention and deletion of personal information, please discuss this with your line manager. 

Any POPI misconduct should be reported to popco@connected.co.za.