She said that while an estate is not allowed to refuse entry to residents or property owners, it does have control over policies governing whether others may enter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“You have an absolute right when you are an owner, occupant, or tenant to enter an estate and they are not allowed to refuse you access,” she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“They can control invitees of a resident, such as guests, family members or contract workers, and many estates in South Africa say if you cannot produce a valid identity document or driver’s licence, you will not be getting entry.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She said this policy can extend to car licence discs, even if the licence has only recently expired or is within the 21-day grace period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She also noted that many estates require foreign nationals to provide both a passport and a work permit before being allowed entry to a property.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This applies particularly to contract workers entering an estate, to prevent illegal immigrants from working on the property.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
South Africans have a 21-day period after a vehicle licence expires to renew it, but the licence could still be considered expired by a private estate during this time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In South Africa, many private estates or business parks will scan identity documents and vehicle licences before permitting a person entry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The rules governing entry to a private estate by people who do not live on the property were recently clarified<\/a> by a High Court ruling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This ruling said that denying access to people other than the tenant does not amount to spoliation, where property is taken unlawfully.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The ruling specifically concerned a person having their ability to generate visitor codes revoked due to ongoing levy disputes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Wasserman’s recent comments highlight that private property owners have significant power over their policies, deciding who can and cannot enter their premises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While estates can collect personal information and require it before allowing a person onto the property, Wasserman said there are ongoing disputes over what is done with that information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n South Africa’s Information Regulator has set out new rules about how gated estates and businesses can collect and store private information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This code of conduct aims to clarify the existing Protection of Personal Information Act (PoPIA) as it applies to private estates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The new rules would prevent personal information from being gathered unnecessarily or shared with others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wasserman said that collecting personal information is understandable for a private property, but there are questions about what is being done with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “We don’t know what happens to some of our data when we enter these gated communities in South Africa,” she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She said the Information Regulator’s new policy comes amid concerns that private information is being used for more than identification.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Information Regulator’s proposed rules would require gated estates to store personal information securely and delete it after a reasonable period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The rules would also mean that biometric and CCTV systems, commonly used for access control at estates, need to be declared to residents along with their purpose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The rules would also specifically target physical books where people have to write down personal information before entering a property, as these make private details public to people who come after you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Gated estates have the right to turn people away for having an expired licence disc, according to VDM Law director Johlene Wasserman.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":131,"featured_media":856540,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"failed","_sma_x_autopost_error":"Instagram publishing failed: Instagram returned HTTP 400: Media ID is not available","_sma_x_post_id":"2091820580920066076","_sma_facebook_post_id":"191437357620492_2185150995638633","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9876],"tags":[16866,19675,24459,26265,23324],"class_list":["post-871676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-cape-talk","tag-information-regulator","tag-johlene-wasserman","tag-private-estate","tag-vdm-law"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/131"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=871676"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":871715,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871676\/revisions\/871715"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/856540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=871676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=871676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=871676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The battle over personal information<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/estate-1-1024x576.jpg\")
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