Pretoria – The Department of Basic Education has asked the high court to set aside the enforcement notice issued by the Information Regulator stopping the publication of matric results in newspapers.
Last month, the Information Regulator served the Department of Basic Education with an enforcement notice to prevent the annual publication of the matric examination results in the local newspapers.
The Information Regulator issued the notice to halt the publication of the 2024 matric results in newspapers due to non-compliance with South Africa’s data protection law, the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA).
However, the department denies that publishing the results in newspapers breaches POPIA.
On Friday, (13 December 2024), the department filed papers at the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria.
“The appeal means that the enforcement notice has been suspended and that the department will proceed and release results to media houses, which will publish them in terms of the established practice in which only exam numbers are used,” the department said in a statement released on Sunday, (15 December 2024).
In its papers, the department argues that publishing the matric examination results in its current format (only the examination number and the results) in the local newspapers is not information that relates to an identifiable learner.
“For the Information Regulator to sit back and merely state a conclusion on the basis that the Department of Basic Education has failed to demonstrate a compliance with any one of the conditions in section 11(1) of the POPI Act is therefore insufficient,” the department said.
“‘It is for the Information Regulator to positively demonstrate non-compliance with the relevant provisions of the POPI Act in respect of a past or present interference with the protection of the personal information of a data subject before an enforcement notice can be served.
“Therefore, the decision to serve the Department with the enforcement notice is not in accordance with the law and/or involves an exercise of discretion by the Information Regulator that ought to have been exercised differently.”
