Given the chaos of the past 12 months, you may be forgiven for forgetting about the Protection of Personal Information Act (PoPI) and the fact that crucial elements of it will come into effect at the midway point of this year. For a company the size of Discovery, it cannot afford to forget about PoPI, especially given the exhaustive amount of data it captures, stores and needs to access on a daily basis.
It is part of the reason why Discovery has been informing its clients about some important changes to the way it communicates with them. Most notably, some new security measures will be taking effect over the coming months, aimed at making correspondence with customers more secure and ultimately adhere to the regulations found within PoPI.
“Starting April 2021, we’ll begin implementing two additional security measures to safeguard your personal information. We will phase in these changes over the next few months, so the changes will not affect all your communications at once,” explains an email that has been sent to customers this week.
The outlined changes are twofold for now, with encrypted attachments and password protections being added to the mix.
“We’ll no longer send you emails that contain personally identifiable information in the main text. If we have to send you documents that contain personally identifiable information, we’ll send them as attachments and encrypt them. This means you’ll have to open these attachments with a password (either your identity number or date of birth). Adding a password helps keep your personal information secure in line with the Protection of Personal Information (POPI) Act,” notes Discovery.
These changes are really nothing new, with financial institutions like Absa having implemented similar protocols for a few years now when it comes to customer communication.
For those who actively make use of the Discovery app and website, a new feature will also be rolling out.
“We’re creating a new Secure Inbox that will store all your important communication on the Discovery app and Discovery website. In some instances, instead of sending you an email, we’ll let you know your personal documents are available to view in your Secure Inbox,” the company adds.
As we near closer to the 30th June 2021 deadline for company’s to be PoPI compliant, you should be seeing more of these types of communications from other companies in the coming weeks, if you have not already.
