Information Sharing and Transparency — Ethical Standards

Entry	Year	Description	Impact
Act 22 of 2023, s.44(3)	2023	The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 amended the RTI Act through section 44(3), replacing section 8(1)(j) with a clause concerning information that relates to personal information. G.S.R. 843(E) brought section 44(3) into force on 13 November 2025. The change concerns the statutory handling of personal information in RTI disclosure; it is distinct from a general instruction to keep official work secret and from the separate commencement dates of other DPDP provisions.	An information-sharing workflow should identify the record, its personal-information content and the lawful disclosure route before deciding what to release. Ethical transparency requires reasons and an intelligible process, while lawful privacy protection requires attention to the information actually involved. Avoid copying an old exemption explanation into a current decision without checking the amendment. Conversely, the presence of a person’s name is not a substitute for examining the complete request under the applicable law.