PAIA manual

1. The body this manual belongs to

Requests are addressed to the head of the body, care of the Information Officer, at the electronic address above. We treat a request sent to that address as properly delivered.

2. The Act, and the guide to it

The Act gives you a right of access to a record of a private body where that record is required for the exercise or protection of any right. Section 10 requires the Information Regulator to publish a guide on how to use the Act. It is available from the Regulator at inforegulator.org.za, in each official language, and from the Regulator’s offices. We will help you get a copy if you ask.

3. Records available without a formal request

We have not published a notice under section 52(2). The following are available on this website to anyone, without any request at all, because withholding them would be absurd:

• The privacy notice
• The programme terms and the website terms
• The section 43 company disclosures
• This manual
• Published descriptions of the product, its limits and how the programme works

4. Records held, by subject and category

Listing a category here does not mean the record will be released. It means we are telling you what exists, which is what section 51(1)(e) requires and is the part of a PAIA manual most often filled with nothing.

5. Records held under other legislation

We hold records in terms of, or as required by, the following. This is section 51(1)(d).

• Companies Act 71 of 2008
• Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008
• Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002
• Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013
• Income Tax Act 58 of 1962
• Tax Administration Act 28 of 2011
• Value-Added Tax Act 89 of 1991
• Basic Conditions of Employment Act 75 of 1997
• Labour Relations Act 66 of 1995
• Occupational Health and Safety Act 85 of 1993, and the Electrical Installation Regulations made under it
• Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act 130 of 1993
• Unemployment Insurance Act 63 of 2001
• Skills Development Act 97 of 1998
• Electricity Regulation Act 4 of 2006

6. How to request a record

1. Use Form C, the prescribed request form for access to a record of a private body, published in the Regulations under PAIA. The Regulator publishes the current form; ask us and we will send it to you.
2. Give enough detail to identify the record and to identify you, and say which right you are exercising or protecting and how the record is required for it. A request that does not say this cannot lawfully be granted, so it is the part worth spending time on.
3. Say what form of access you want — a copy, an inspection, a transcript — and in what language and format.
4. If you are asking on someone else’s behalf, attach proof of your authority.
5. Send it to info@powersync.co.za, marked for the Information Officer.

Your own personal information. If you are asking for personal information about yourself, you do not need Form C and you do not pay a request fee. Write to the Information Officer and say what you want. That request is dealt with under POPIA as well as PAIA, and the privacy notice describes it.

7. What happens next, and when

• We acknowledge the request within five business days.
• We decide within 30 days of receiving it, and tell you the decision in writing. If we need longer, we may extend by a further 30 days under section 57 and we will tell you why before the first period ends.
• If a record contains information about a third party, we must notify them under section 71 and give them a chance to make representations. That takes additional time, and we will tell you it is happening.
• If we refuse, we tell you which provision we relied on, enough of the reasons to let you judge whether the refusal is sound, and that you may apply to court.

8. Fees

Fees are those prescribed in the PAIA Regulations, and we charge no more than the prescribed amount. There are three:

• A request fee, payable on lodging a request for a record that is not your own personal information.
• A deposit, where preparing the record will take more than the prescribed number of hours to search for and prepare.
• An access fee, covering reproduction and, where applicable, search and preparation and postage.

We will tell you the amount in writing before you incur it, and you may lodge an internal appeal or apply to court against a fee decision. Requests for your own personal information carry no request fee.

9. Grounds on which we may refuse

Chapter 4 of Part 3 of the Act sets these out, and some of them oblige us to refuse rather than permitting it. In summary, we must or may refuse access to a record where disclosure would:

• unreasonably disclose personal information about a third party (section 63);
• breach a duty of confidence owed to a third party (section 65);
• reveal commercial information of a third party, or our own trade secrets, financial or technical information likely to cause harm (sections 64 and 68);
• prejudice the safety of a person, or the protection of property, including the security of a system (section 66);
• be privileged in legal proceedings, or prejudice research (sections 67 and 69).

Section 70 requires disclosure despite those grounds where the record reveals a substantial contravention of the law or an imminent and serious public safety or environmental risk and the public interest in disclosure clearly outweighs the harm. We apply that section as written, and would rather be told we are wrong about it than have to be asked twice.

10. If you are unhappy with the outcome

There is no internal appeal against the decision of a private body. You may:

• complain to the Information Regulator (South Africa) at complaints.IR@justice.gov.za; or
• apply to a court under section 78 within 180 days of being told of the decision.

11. Availability of this manual

This manual is published on this website and is available at no charge. A copy in printed form, or in another official language, will be provided on request to info@powersync.co.za. It is also lodged with the Information Regulator as required.

We review it annually, and whenever the records we hold change materially.