By Johnathan Paoli
The Basic Education Department has confirmed that it is currently in discussions with its legal team on whether to fight the enforcement notice by the Information Regulator (IR) in prohibiting the publishing of matric results on media platforms.
Basic Education spokesperson Elijah Mhlanga said the department was due to meet its legal team for advice over the weekend.
He told Inside Education that the department has discussed the issue internally. It was now requesting legal counsel.
Mhlanga said by the end of the weekend, the department would have an idea of how to proceed.
IR spokesperson Nomzamo Zondi said on Friday that following a compliance assessment by the regulator, the department was found to be violating Section 11 of the Protection of Personal Information Act.
Zondi said the department had failed to secure permission from matriculants who sat for the 2023 National Senior Certificate exams or their guardians, before publishing their personal information, thereby breaching privacy rights.
“The IR found that no legal justification existed for the DBE to continue with the publication of the results in the newspapers,” she said.
Civil rights group AfriForum is also consulting its lawyers on the matter.
INSIDE EDUCATION
