South Africa’s Information Regulator has now included Google and Elon Musk’s X in an investigation about the recent general election, which originally only involved Meta Platforms.
Pansy Tlakula, the chairperson of the regulator, announced that all three companies—Google, X, and Meta—had not responded to requests for information under the Promotion of Access to Information Act (Paia). The companies argued that Paia does not apply to them, even though they operate in South Africa.
Tlakula explained, “The complainant has requested access to the records relating to the classification of elections, risk assessments concerning South Africa’s electoral integrity, and the application of global policies to local contexts within these three entities. The Regulator has accepted these complaints, and all three complaints are currently under investigation.”
The investigation into Meta Platforms began after it did not comply with a Paia request from the Campaign for Free Expression (CFE). The CFE asked for details about how Meta manages elections to ensure transparency and to assess if it manages election-related risks properly.
Meta argued that, as a company based in the US, it is not required to follow South African law. In contrast, Google has agreed to meet with the regulator to discuss the issues, but Meta and X have not made similar commitments.
The Regulator hopes to resolve these issues through settlement or conciliation, with settlement being the preferred method. Settlement means reaching an agreement directly between the regulator and the company. If a settlement isn’t possible, the regulator will try to facilitate a conciliation process involving both sides.
This is not the first time the Regulator has taken action. In January 2021, it also investigated WhatsApp’s revised privacy policy to check if it met the requirements of the Protection of Personal Information Act (Popia), 2013. The Regulator found that WhatsApp had different privacy policies for users in Europe compared to other places, including South Africa. As a result, it issued an enforcement notice for WhatsApp to update its privacy policy to comply with Popia and rejected WhatsApp’s claim that Paia did not apply to it as a social media network.
