1. INTRODUCTION

Berndt and La Vita Incorporated (“BLV/We”) is committed to protecting and promoting the constitutional right to privacy of its clients to fulfil its obligations under the Protection of Personal Information Act no 4 of 2013 (“POPI”) and other local and international legislation.

2. This Declaration is an explicit statement and brief overview of our commitment to protect personal information and comply with the provisions of POPI. It is an integral part of our Privacy Terms and must be read together with our Privacy Policy and our Data Protection Policy.

3. In this light we bring the following to your attention:

3.1 Whether you are an active client or inactive client (“Clients”), Rule 54.9.2 of the Legal Practice Council’s (LPC) rules provides that a law firm shall retain its accounting records, and all files and documents relating to matters dealt with by the firm on behalf of clients (Records) for at least 7 (seven) years from the date of the last entry recorded in each particular book or other document of record or file. Furthermore, subject to certain provisos, save with the prior written consent of the LPC, or when removed there from under lawful authority, or when necessary to perform our duties and obligations in accordance with our mandate, Records are stored at no place other than its main office, a branch office or, in the case of electronic accounting records or files, the location at which such accounting records or files are ordinarily hosted;

3.2 On expiry of the data retention period, BLV undertakes to destroy of its client’s records and files unless otherwise agreed to in writing;

3.3 Records, by virtue of their nature, include Personal Information which is summarily defined in POPI as information relating to an identifiable, living, natural person, and where it is applicable, an identifiable, existing juristic person, including, but not limited to: the views or opinions of another individual about the person. BLV therefore collects, processes, and stores Personal Information for the following purposes (which is not an exhaustive list):

• Financial Intelligence Centre Act 38 of 2001 (FICA) compliance;
• Taking instructions and performing our duties under our mandate;
• Providing various professional and legal services;
• Protecting its clients interests;
• Conducting its business to the extend necessary to fulfill its duties.

3.4 BLV shall either collect Personal Information directly from the Client or from publicly accessible platforms and agencies;

3.5 Clients have the right to access their Personal Information being processed by BLV at anytime during their engagement with BLV or within the 7 year period;

3.6 It is your responsibility to update your Personal Information at BLV and to ensure that same is not incorrect or misleading in anyway. BLV reserves the right to immediately cease work on any active file should it come to its attention that the Personal Information provided is misleading;

3.7 You acknowledge, accept and consent to the processing of your personal information for any purpose relating to the rendering of services, administration, management and operations of BLV’s legitimate business purposes by BLV or anyone acting on behalf of BLV including but not limited to Counsel, correspondent attorneys, sub-contractors, agents, auditors, messengers etc.

3.8 It may be necessary for BLV to transfer Personal Information to a third parties outside of South Africa. In the event of such cross-border transfer, BLV shall take reasonable steps to ensure that it shall ensure that the third party has implemented the appropriate technical and organizational security measures as envisaged in POPI;

3.9 By virtue of the nature of the business relationship between BLV and Clients (the Parties), Clients understand that it may also be processing BLV’s Personal Information. In this light, the Parties:

• undertake not to disclose Personal Information of the other unless it is legally or contractually required or for its legitimate business purposes;
• shall use all reasonable efforts to ensure that Personal Information in its possession or processed on its behalf is kept confidential, stored in a secure manner and processed in terms of POPI;
• shall take all reasonable steps to identify risk associated with the processing of the Personal Information and establish safeguards against all reasonably foreseeable risks;
• Shall immediately notify the other should there be a breach or potential breach or a threat of a breach of the confidentiality of the Personal Information of the other party.

4. BLV implores you to refer to BLV’s Privacy Policy and Data Protection Policy available on its website at www.blvlaw.co.za which may be amended from time to time without notice.

5. You have a right to lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator (complaints.IR@justice.gov.za) if you are of the view that your rights under POPI have been breached. You may also contact BLV’s Information Officer, Audrey Berndt (audrey@blvlaw.co.za) for any POPI related queries.

6. ACCEPTANCE: By providing us with the Personal Information which we require from you as listed under our Privacy Policy:

6.1 You acknowledge that you understand why your Personal Information needs to be processed;

6.2 You accept the terms which will apply to such processing, including the terms applicable to the transfer of such Personal Information cross border;

6.3 Where consent is required for any processing as reflected in the Privacy Terms, you agree, by way of providing us with your Personal Information, that we may process this particular personal information;

6.4 Where you provide us with another person’s personal information for processing, you confirm and warrant that that you have obtained the required permission from such person(s) to provide us with their personal information for processing and indemnify and hold us harmless against any liability or loss which may be incurred by us or our employees as a result of any breach of such warranty.