POPIA Compliance

The Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 gives effect to the constitutional right to privacy. It sets out how organisations in South Africa may collect, use, store and share personal information, and gives people — data subjects — enforceable rights over their own information.

This page explains our approach. The detail of what we collect and why is in our Privacy Policy.

MML Attorneys Inc. is the responsible party for personal information collected through this website and our practice.

Our Information Officer is Ismaiel Mohamed, registered with the Information Regulator as POPIA requires. Deputy Information Officers may be appointed for each office.

We process personal information where:

• You have consented — for example by submitting a consultation booking.
• It is necessary to conclude or perform a contract with you, including carrying out a mandate.
• It is required by law, including legislation applying to legal practitioners such as FICA.
• It protects a legitimate interest of yours.
• It is necessary for our legitimate interests, or those of a third party, and does not override your rights.

POPIA sets eight conditions for lawful processing. In practice we apply them as follows:

• Accountability — our Information Officer is responsible for compliance.
• Processing limitation — we collect the minimum needed, lawfully and in a way that does not intrude unreasonably.
• Purpose specification — we collect for a defined, lawful purpose and tell you what it is.
• Further processing limitation — we do not later use your information for something incompatible with that purpose.
• Information quality — we take reasonable steps to keep information complete, accurate and current.
• Openness — we publish this page and our Privacy Policy, and maintain a PAIA manual.
• Security safeguards — we apply appropriate technical and organisational measures, described in our Privacy Policy.
• Data subject participation — you may ask what we hold and require correction or deletion.

• To be told when your information is collected, and when it has been accessed without authorisation.
• To ask, free of charge, whether we hold information about you, and to request a copy.
• To ask us to correct or delete information that is inaccurate, irrelevant, excessive, out of date, incomplete, misleading or unlawfully obtained.
• To object, on reasonable grounds, to our processing.
• To object to processing for direct marketing by unsolicited electronic communication.
• To complain to the Information Regulator.
• To institute civil proceedings over an infringement of your rights.

Email durbanville@mmlinc.co.za with what you would like us to do. Requests for access are made on the prescribed form under the Promotion of Access to Information Act 2 of 2000; we will send it to you and explain any fee that applies.

We may need to verify your identity before acting, so that we do not disclose your information to someone else. We aim to respond within a reasonable period and in any event within the time the law allows.

We do not add you to a marketing list because you booked a consultation. Where we do send electronic marketing, it is only with your consent or to existing clients about similar services, and every message carries a way to opt out. You may object at any time and we will stop.

Our booking service runs on Google Firebase and Google Calendar, and the website is served by a hosting provider. These may process data on servers outside South Africa.

Section 72 of POPIA permits such a transfer where the recipient is subject to a law, binding rules or a contract that upholds principles for lawful processing substantially similar to POPIA. We rely on the contractual terms and data protection commitments these providers make, including their obligations as operators.

If there are reasonable grounds to believe your personal information has been accessed or acquired by an unauthorised person, we will notify the Information Regulator and you, as soon as reasonably possible after discovering it, with enough detail for you to take protective steps.

Please raise a concern with us first — we would rather put it right. If you remain dissatisfied, you may complain to the Information Regulator (South Africa), which oversees POPIA and PAIA. Its current contact details and complaint forms are published at inforegulator.org.za.

For any POPIA-related question: