POPIA Policy

African Royals United (ARU), Reg. 2026/097933/08, is the Responsible Party as defined in the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (POPIA). The Office of the Secretary General is the operational custodian of all personal information processed by the institution.

Information Officer enquiries: info@africanroyalsunited.org.za · 076 386 0229

ARU only processes personal information for specific, explicitly defined and lawful purposes. The lawful bases we rely on are:

• Consent — for biographies, contact requests and registrations.
• Performance of a mandate — to discharge the institutional functions of ARU.
• Legal obligation — where retention or disclosure is required by South African law.
• Legitimate interests — for the secure operation, governance and audit of the institution.

ARU publishes the names, titles, qualifications, affiliations, areas of practice, lineage/origin and professional biographies of its principals on the official website and institutional communications. This information is processed for the following purposes only:

• Public identification of authorised office bearers of ARU.
• Verification of credentials by partners, regulators and counterparties.
• Ceremonial protocol, diplomatic correspondence and institutional records.
• Historical and archival recordkeeping of the institutional council.

Principals provide their information voluntarily and confirm its accuracy at the point of submission. ARU does not publish home addresses, identity numbers, banking details or other special personal information about principals on the public website. Principals may at any time request correction, an update, or withdrawal of specific elements of their published profile by writing to the Information Officer.

When you submit a contact request, registration or enquiry to ARU (including via web forms, email, telephone or post), you expressly consent to the following:

• ARU collecting and storing the personal information you provide (such as your name, contact details and the content of your enquiry) for the purpose of responding to and administering your request.
• ARU contacting you using the channels you have provided (email, telephone, SMS or postal address) in relation to your enquiry and any directly related institutional matter.
• Your information being shared internally only with the ARU office or principal best placed to respond, on a strict need-to-know basis.
• Retention of your contact request for a period of up to five (5) years for institutional record, audit and legal compliance, after which it is securely destroyed.

You may withdraw your consent at any time. Withdrawal of consent does not affect the lawfulness of processing carried out before the withdrawal, and may limit ARU's ability to respond to your request.

ARU applies appropriate, reasonable technical and organisational measures to safeguard personal information, including encryption of data in transit, role-based access controls, audit logging, secure cloud hosting, and vetting of personnel with access to the secretariat systems. Suspected security compromises are reported to the Information Regulator and to affected data subjects in accordance with section 22 of POPIA.

Under POPIA you have the right to:

• Be notified that your information is being collected and the purpose thereof.
• Request access to the personal information ARU holds about you.
• Request correction or deletion of inaccurate, irrelevant, excessive or outdated information.
• Object to the processing of your personal information on reasonable grounds.
• Object to direct marketing and to withdraw consent at any time.
• Lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator of South Africa.

To exercise these rights, contact the ARU Information Officer at info@africanroyalsunited.org.za. You may also escalate concerns to the Information Regulator at inforegulator.org.za.