AfriForum has instructed its legal team to challenge the enforcement notice served on the Basic Education Department which could see media platforms barred from publishing matric results, according to HeraldLIVE.

Earlier in November, the Information Regulator (IR) issued an enforcement notice on the department over its non-compliance with the Protection of Personal Information Act (Popia).

In a statement last week, the IR directed that the results of the 2024 matriculants should not be published in newspapers, and must make these results available to the pupils using methods that are compliant with Popia.

These are either through secure SMS platforms or from the schools themselves.

AfriForum’s Alana Bailey yesterday said they would challenge the directive in court.

‘In January 2022, we won a case regarding the publication of matric results. At the time, the directive was from the Department of Basic Education.

‘However, this time, the directive comes from the IR; it’s unclear whether it applies to all forms of media or just print media. While online platforms allow individuals to input their personal information and retrieve their results, AfriForum still believes it’s in the public interest to publish this information. In 2022, the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) granted an urgent application by an 18-year-old matric pupil, supported by AfriForum and Maroela Media. The court ordered the department ‘to publish the National Senior Certificate results on public platforms…’

The Education Department has yet to decide if it would abide by the enforcement notice or challenge it.

Full HeraldLIVE report

See also full report in The Star