Wilmot James, the Democratic Alliance (DA) Shadow Minister of Health, writes:
The DA have a letter from the Health Minister, Aaron Motsoaledi, to the Council for Medical Schemes (CMS) in July last year in which he requested the CMS to collect private data about medical scheme members in order maintain a ‘Beneficiary Registry’ of members.
His outrageous request – to collect very private, sensitive information, to which the government has no right – is not only unconstitutional, but also in flagrant violation of the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPI), Act No.4 of 2013. Additionally, it poses a real security risk to individual citizens.
The Minister’s request claimed to be for purposes of “monitoring the impact of current policies and identifying medical scheme members who access services in the public sector”.
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