POPIA Compliance for SMS Marketing: What Every South African Business Must Know

POPIA has been fully enforceable since 1 July 2021. Non-compliance can result in fines of up to R10 million or criminal charges.

What POPIA Requires

  • Explicit opt-in consent before any marketing SMS
  • Clear opt-out in every message: Reply STOP
  • Secure storage of all contact data
  • Immediate opt-out processing (within 24 hours)
  • No sharing of data with third parties without consent

5 Steps to Compliance

  1. Use sign-up forms with explicit SMS consent checkbox
  2. Document when and how consent was given
  3. Add “Reply STOP to unsubscribe” to every marketing SMS
  4. Process opt-outs within 24 hours
  5. Use a POPIA-compliant provider like SMSMessenger

Transactional vs marketing SMS: Transactional SMS (order confirmations, OTPs, reminders) does not require prior marketing consent. Promotional SMS does.