Although enacted by Parliament and signed by the President in 2013, the substantive provisions of POPI are not yet in force. These will only come into operation and have any force when a date of commencement is proclaimed by the President. There is no official indication when that will be. Once the substantive provisions of POPI do come into effect, there will be a one-year compliance grace period.  Because POPI is new law and not in force, courts have not yet interpreted it. There is also no predecessor legislation for interpretative guidance. That makes advising on its effect more difficult than usual. For now, the best we can do is to interpret POPI according to the general language-context-purpose framework for statutory interpretation in South African law. Our courts are also likely to look for comparative guidance in jurisdictions with more developed data protection jurisprudence. In particular, POPI’s language closely tracks EU data protection laws. In expressing the views that follow, we have had regard to this EU jurisprudence. In essence, the POPI Act is not yet in force.