Search Results (5)

The right to privacy is one of the fundamental human rights recognised by many countries. Privacy extends to the protection of one’s personal information, including when such information is shared for the purpose of receiving professional services. Despite the significance of protecting personal information across international communities, there is scant literature to guide compliance among social work practitioners who deal with the most vulnerable population groups. This integrative literature review sought to explore the applicability of South African privacy legislation (the Protection of Personal Information Act of 2013 (POPIA)) to social work intervention processes and practices. Data were analysed deductively following Five and Gossner’s framework. The findings revealed that POPIA relates to the indispensable social work principle of confidentiality and that it applies to social work interventions whenever personal information is involved. POPIA is central to social work practice in South Africa. It is therefore essential to develop guidelines for compliance in social work practice and for training social workers on the protection of personal information of their clients. This study contributes to knowledge by shedding some light on the importance of POPIA in social work interventions. Full article

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become central to the evolution of learning analytics (LA), transforming how higher-education institutions capture and interpret student engagement data. This narrative review synthesises research published between 2015 and 2025 to examine how AI-driven analytics link learner engagement to measurable academic outcomes, with emphasis on the South-African higher-education context. Drawing on global reviews of AI in education and emerging governance frameworks, the study highlights the shift from traditional dashboards toward deep-learning and transformer-based systems that integrate behavioural, cognitive, and affective indicators. Ethical and policy challenges, particularly around data privacy, transparency, and institutional capacity, remain significant. Grounded in UNESCO and OECD guidance and South Africa’s Protection of Personal Information Act, the review outlines a governance-driven approach for equitable and transparent adoption of AI-enhanced learning analytics. It identifies key challenges, data fragmentation, algorithmic opacity, and limited contextual adaptation, and translates them into practical recommendations for policy, capacity building, and future research. The findings underscore that sustainable AI adoption requires human-centred ethics, robust data governance, and context-sensitive innovation to achieve inclusive and data-driven higher education. Full article

Privacy harms have expanded alongside rapid technological change, challenging the adequacy of existing regulatory frameworks. This systematic review (1990–2025) systematically maps documented privacy harms to specific legal mechanisms and observed enforcement outcomes across jurisdictions, using PRISMA-guided methods and ROBIS risk-of-bias assessment. We synthesize evidence on major regimes (e.g., GDPR, COPPA, CCPA, HIPAA, GLBA) and conduct comparative legal analysis across the U.S., E.U., and underexplored regions in Asia, Latin America, and Africa. Key findings indicate increased recognition of data subject rights, persistent gaps in cross-border data governance, and emerging risks from AI/ML/LLMs, IoT, and blockchain, including data breaches, algorithmic discrimination, and surveillance. While regulations have advanced, enforcement variability and fragmented standards limit effectiveness. We propose strategies for harmonization and risk-based, technology-neutral safeguards. While focusing on the U.S. sectoral and E.U. comprehensive models, we include targeted comparisons with Canada (PIPEDA), Australia (Privacy Act/APPs), Japan (APPI), India (DPDPA), Africa (POPIA/NDPR/Kenya DPA), and ASEAN interoperability instruments. This review presents an evidence-based framework for understanding the interplay between evolving harms, emerging technologies, and legal protections, and identifies priorities for strengthening global privacy governance. Full article

This study presents a systematic literature review of scholarly research on the implementation and compliance challenges associated with South Africa’s Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) between 2014 and 2024. In total, 41 of the 2069 initially retrieved studies that were found using the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) framework in Scopus and Google Scholar satisfied the requirements for inclusion in the in-depth analysis. This review explores thematic trends, methodological approaches, and sectoral applications of POPIA-focused research. This study provides a thorough evidence foundation to guide policy, practice, and future research regarding POPIA compliance in South Africa. Results indicate a gradual transition from theoretical discourse to empirical and sector-specific research, with qualitative approaches (e.g., interviews and case studies) being the most dominant. Proposed implementation tactics in the literature include staff training, risk assessment tools, and compliance with international data protection requirements, including the GDPR. This study provides a thorough evidence foundation to guide policy, practice, and future research regarding POPIA compliance in South Africa. Full article

Globally, concerns over information security vulnerabilities are growing exponentially, fuelled by several headline reports of data breach incidents, which increase in size with each occurrence. On the Africa continent, South Africa is ranked among the most ‘at-risk’ countries for information security vulnerabilities, having lost approximately fifty billion rands to cybercrime in 2014. South Africa is currently considered to be the most cybercrime-targeted country in Africa. Worldwide, cyber vulnerability incidents greatly affect the education sector, due to the fact that this sector holds more Personal Identifiable Information (PII) than many other sectors. The PII ranges from (but is not limited to) ID numbers and financial account numbers to biomedical research data. In response to growing threats in South Africa, a similar regulation strategy to the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), called the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) will be implemented, with a view to mitigating cybercrime and information security vulnerabilities. The extent to which African institutions, and specifically the South African universities, have embraced and respond to these two information security regulations (GDPR and POPIA) is not yet clear and will be a matter of great importance for biomedical researchers. This research study aims to conduct a qualitative exploratory analysis of information security management across three universities in South Africa, by using a Technology, Organizational, and Environmental (TOE) model to investigate the factors which may influence the effectiveness of information security measures. This study is poised to make a significant contribution to the development of a Management Model for security practitioners and a framework for information management of biomedical data. Full article