Your data and POPIA: how Jointly keeps records safe
What South Africa's POPIA means for your family's information, the rights it gives you, why children's data gets extra protection, and how Jointly is built to safeguard it.
By The Jointly Team · 2 May 2026 · 4 min read
General information, not legal advice. This explains our approach in plain terms; see our Privacy Policy for the formal detail.
The Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013 (POPIA) governs how personal information must be handled in South Africa. Co-parenting involves sensitive information about you and your children, so this matters more here than almost anywhere.
What POPIA is for
POPIA exists to protect personal information while still letting organisations do legitimate work with it. It sets conditions for lawful processing, including that information must be collected for a specific purpose, kept secure, used only for that purpose, and not kept longer than necessary. The body that enforces it is the Information Regulator.
The rights it gives you
Under POPIA you can:
- Know what information is collected about you and why.
- Access your information.
- Correct or delete information that’s wrong or no longer needed.
- Object to certain processing.
- Complain to the Information Regulator if something goes wrong.
The organisation that decides how and why your information is processed (the “responsible party”) must protect it and use it only for legitimate purposes.
Why children’s information gets extra care
POPIA treats information about children as special personal information, with stricter rules on when and how it may be processed. Since Jointly holds details like medical, school, and emergency information, we treat that data with corresponding care.
How Jointly protects your information
- Information is encrypted and access-controlled.
- Documents are shared through short-lived signed links, not open URLs anyone could reach.
- Your private journal is visible only to you, never to the other parent.
- Payments are handled by a dedicated payment provider, so sensitive banking details stay protected.
- You stay in control: you can export your records and reports at any time, so your data remains useful to you rather than locked away.
Learn more
- Information Regulator (South Africa)
- Jointly’s full Privacy Policy