Laws are important. Seriously. Imagine if we all drove as we wished on our roads, and I'm not only referring to some of the flagrant abuses perpetrated by those behind the wheel of fancy German automobiles, taxis and buses.
The committee in charge of the Protection of Personal Information Bill doesn't seem to have a cooking clue about what is going on in SA.
Nicola Mawson, deputy news editor, ITWeb
What if there were no laws, and we could all drive the wrong way up one ways, skip stop streets, and randomly do as we please? Okay, scratch that - we do anyway.
Yet, despite the fact that we treat the roads as our own personal fiefdoms, there are still rules that we are meant to follow, and doing any of the above can result in bad drivers being convicted, and possibly even spending time behind bars.
That's why laws are there: to protect the rest of us.
Laws should be well thought-out, meaningful pieces of legislation, even if the powers-that-be sometimes - or rather, often - fall down in the actual implementation phase.
Legislation is meant to protect citizens, to level the playing fields and to make SA a great place to live. Yet this often isn't the case.
Wasted potential
So I don't know why I was so shocked and angered when I discovered the committee in charge of the Protection of Personal Information Bill doesn't seem to have a cooking clue about what is going on in SA.
PPI - not to be confused with the controversial Protection of State Information or Secrecy Bill - has been on the cards for at least a decade.
It's one of those laws that could actually make a difference to our lives if it ever sees the light of day. For one thing, companies keeping our information on some unsecured database somewhere will now have to clean up their act and look after our data.
It also sets limits on when, for how long and what sort of information firms can keep. That could well mean an end to the spam that clogs our in-boxes daily, or those irritating SMSes that come between 2am and 4am because no one has programmed the automated sender properly.
In addition - and this is the best part - if our sensitive details get leaked, companies will be forced to tell us. This is a practice enforced in the US, which is why we all know when Sony gets hacked, for example.
Until the law comes into effect, those breaches can simply be swept under the carpet, and no one will ever be the wiser.
I'm all for PPI, but I'm beginning to doubt whether it will be effective, even if it finally comes into effect. PPI was sidelined when debates on the Secrecy Bill - the one that will criminalise aspects of my job - heated up.
However, the technical committee has been quietly hammering out some of the finer details. In a recent meeting, it discussed what sort of punishment would make companies look after data.
Then some committee members lost the plot.
Beg yours?
The Democratic Alliance's representative, Dene Smuts, is quoted by the Parliamentary Monitoring Group as saying Telkom has been fined 10% of its turnover, presumably by the Competition Tribunal.
No, it hasn't. The fixed-line operator has yet to appear before the Tribunal to argue the facts of any of the two cases for which the lesser body, the commission, wants it fined 10%.
Then Smuts goes into overdrive and says Telkom has tried to escape this fine by jumping from forum to forum.
Good grief. Any company that may have been fined cannot go to a completely separate regulatory body to have it quashed. Companies have to follow the correct legal procedure. If Telkom is fined after the matter has finally been heard at the Tribunal later this year, it can appeal it - at the Competition Appeal Court.
What actually happened is that the case against Telkom was referred to the Tribunal, and the company then argued over whether the Tribunal or the Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA) has jurisdiction.
That debate was finally settled in the Supreme Court, which found against Telkom, and the first of two cases against Telkom will be heard this month. Read about it on ITWeb, it's all there, it's not a secret.
Smuts is the shadow minister of justice and constitutional development, for crying in a bucket. She should know better. At the very least, read the jolly newspapers.
After more yada yada, the honourable members moved onto the question of tribunals, and showed a flagrant lack of understanding of how some of SA's legal processes work.
Chairman John Jeffrey said tribunal sharing was an option, in the same way the Consumer Protection Act shared the Competition Tribunal.
Save us all. How can a piece of legislation - and not an enforcement body - share a tribunal?
No, Mr Jeffrey. The National Consumer Commission, set up to enforce the CPA, shares a tribunal. But not with the Competition Commission. No, it shares with the National Credit Regulator and that higher-level body is called - wait for it - the National Consumer Tribunal.
No hope
Judging by the level of misunderstanding displayed by SA's lawmakers, we would be better off without more legislation.
Do these people not read papers? And these are the folk we trust to protect us by crafting pieces of legislation that will stand up to scrutiny the world over.
SA needs legislation that will not only protect its people, but big business too. We desperately need companies to invest here, and the only way we can do that is to have first-class everything, especially a regulatory environment that enables business.
Yes, it's time our privacy laws were brought in line with international best practices. Yes, we need to know when data gets compromised. Yes, it's going to cost big business to do so.
But no, PPI should not deter investments. It's the sort of practice and legalisation that's being implemented around the world.
What will deter investors, and turn the legislation into something that's not fit to be more than a coaster, is if it's so badly written that it's of no use. And based on the committee's deliberations, that's a sure bet.
Pity.
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