Should the 2024 matric results be published in newspapers? It’s become a court battle between privacy rights and public interest.
The Information Regulator (IR) and the Department of Basic Education (DBE) are in conflict over the publication of this year’s National Senior Certificate exam results in newspapers.
In November 2024, the Information Regulator prohibited the department from publishing the National Senior Certificate exam results in the media. The Information Regulator issued an enforcement notice to the DBE for non-compliance with the Protection of Personal Information Act (Popia). The independent body found that the department had violated the conditions for the lawful processing of personal information by failing to obtain consent for the publication of the matric results, either from the learners themselves or from their parents/guardians, for those who sat for the 2023 National Senior Certificate examinations.
Read more: Privacy over publicity: DBE must revise matric results publication method to meet legal standards
The Information Regulator also issued an infringement notice to the department on 23 December, instructing the DBE to pay an administrative fine of R5-million due to its failure to comply with the enforcement notice.
In response, the DBE filed an application in December 2024 to have the enforcement notice issued by the Information Regulator set aside. The department submitted the papers to the Gauteng Division of the High Court in Pretoria on Friday, 13 December and contends that its court challenge temporarily suspends the enforcement notice.
The Information Regulator’s position
Pansy Tlakula, Chairperson of the Information Regulator, stated in her affidavit that the DBE would not be harmed if matric results were only issued directly to learners at their schools or via the department’s SMS platform. This approach, she explained, would ensure the results remained accessible only to students, protecting their personal information.
“The DBE only has to give the matric results to the relevant learners or their authorised guardians or parents. The Information Regulator and the learners stand to suffer harm by the publication of the 2024 matric results in the media,” she said.
Tlakula made it clear that this application was focused on the DBE’s compliance with the enforcement notice orders, which, she said, carried full legal force and effect until they were set aside on appeal.
“This court is not called upon to inquire into the lawfulness of the orders, as it is a matter for another court some other day. This application was necessitated by the DBE’s refusal to comply with the orders and its failure to timeously appeal against the orders…This court is only required to accept that the orders exist in fact and in law and that they have full legal force and effect and that they cannot be ignored by the DBE.”
In her affidavit, she emphasised that as organs of state, the respondents (the department) had a heightened duty to respect and uphold the rule of law.
“The respondents have, in recent times, acted in a way that suggests they do not respect the rule of law or the processes of the Information Regulator. This is why the Information Regulator has decided to bring this application.”
Tlakula explained that an assessment was conducted to determine whether the DBE’s publication of matric results in newspapers complied with Popia. The assessment concluded that publishing the results would violate the Act. She said she had requested the minister to confirm the DBE’s compliance with the order not to publish the results, but received no response. This left the Information Regulator with no choice but to urgently seek court intervention.
Tlakula argued that if the department proceeded with publishing the results, it would disclose matric learners’ personal information in the media without their consent, infringing on their right to privacy.
On the 2025 matric results, she emphasised that the DBE had to obtain consent from learners over 18, or from the parents or guardians of those under 18, before publishing their results. She further noted that, to comply with Popia’s consent requirements, the DBE had to establish a system to obtain the necessary consent from learners or their guardians before releasing the results in the media.
The department’s argument
In its appeal documents, the DBE states that the publication of matriculation exam results in their current format – featuring only the examination number and results – in local newspapers does not constitute information that identifies an individual learner.
“In all of the years that it was the practice to publish the matric examination results in the local newspapers, the department has not received one single complaint from or on behalf of any matriculant that such publication was an infringement or breach of privacy. Nor has the department received any complaints or allegations of harm or injury occasioned by the publication of the matric exam results in the local newspapers,” the department’s director-general, Hubert Mweli, said in the papers.
The DBE’s appeal is based on four key points. First, an enforcement notice under section 95(1) of the Popia Act can only be issued and served in response to past or present interference with the protection of a data subject’s personal information. Enforcement notices are therefore reactive in nature. This means that the proactive notice served by the Information Regulator on the DBE, concerning the future publication of matric examination results, is null and void.
Second, the Information Regulator is bound by an existing court order that has already determined the lawfulness of releasing and publishing the matric examination results in their current format in newspapers. In January 2022, the department announced that, in compliance with Popia (which came into effect in July 2020), matric results would no longer be published in newspapers or on digital platforms, requiring pupils to collect their results from their schools.
However, AfriForum, Maroela Media and a matriculant successfully challenged this decision in court. Judge Anthony Millar ruled that the results should be published as in previous years, but without learners’ names and surnames. Judge Millar emphasised that while online access was an option, it was not viable for many in South Africa, particularly those from modest backgrounds, where a shared newspaper provided a more practical solution for accessing results.
However, Tlakula argues that the 2022 judgment was reached through an agreement between the applicants and the department, without the court having considered the merits of the case. As a result, the court did not make any ruling on the lawfulness of publishing matric results in newspapers.
Third, the publication of the matric examination results in their current format does not involve the release of information that identifies an individual. Therefore, the department is not in contravention of section 11 of the Popia Act. Finally, the release and publication of the matric examination results by the DBE, in their current format, complies with the processing limitations set out in sections 11(1)(b), (c), (d), (e), or (f) of the Popia Act.
Mweli noted that the 2021 decision encountered “strong opposition from the general public” and firmly emphasised that the issue had been settled, with the Information Regulator being bound by the high court’s previous ruling.
“The response from the general public demonstrated that the moral and legal convictions of South African society were in favour of the publication of the matric exam results in local newspapers,” he said.
The Gauteng Division of the High Court in Pretoria High heard the urgent application on Tuesday, 7 January, with the Information Regulator seeking an interdict to prevent the DBE from publishing the 2024 matric results in newspapers.
Judge Ronel Tolmay heard the legal arguments, with much of the focus in the proceedings revolving around the issue of urgency. The central question was whether this matter should be considered urgent enough to warrant immediate attention and an interdict. The Information Regulator contends it is, but both lobby group AfriForum and the DBE pushed back, arguing that there was no basis for urgency. The department’s legal counsel argued that the Information Regulator had sufficient time to bring an appeal and had failed to act on the 2022 order.
Tolmay said she would make a ruling on whether it would entertain the matter on Wednesday morning.
Legal experts weigh in
Sadia Rizvi, an associate, and Simone Dickson, senior legal consultant at Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr, noted that several authors argue that publishing matric results serves the public interest, particularly in evaluating educational outcomes or supporting the right to access information. However, these public interest considerations must be balanced against privacy rights, which are constitutionally protected.
“Given the global trend towards adopting privacy legislation, it seems likely that the privacy rights of learners would be afforded more weight. The fact that the results were published in the past cannot be relied on given the developments in the awareness around and regulation of protection of personal information,” Rizvi and Dickson told Daily Maverick.
The matter illustrates the wider point that data handling practices and compliance in public entities must be revisited.
“It is no longer justifiable to state that ‘this is always how we did it’. It is important to establish clear grounds of justification to process personal data and to establish data protection measures to protect public data. Public bodies are tasked with handling vast amounts of data, and the measures that need to be put in place must be equivalent to [the] nature and volume of processing that occurs,” the lawyers said.
DBE spokesperson Elijah Mhlanga explained to journalists outside court that the 2022 judgment directed the department to release the results using the exam numbers. This is the approach they have continued to follow, and there has since been no new court ruling to overturn that decision, nor any appeal.
“That’s why we’re here, and why we’ve consistently maintained that we will proceed as we did in 2022 and 2023. Since nothing has changed, there’s no reason to consider this matter urgent. We are hopeful the judge will agree with us tomorrow,” he said.
Mhlanga said there had been ongoing engagements between the Information Regulator and the department. However, despite these efforts, there was still no agreement on the necessary actions.
“That’s why we believe that perhaps, for now, the court will give us urgent relief, and then we can continue in the court to ventilate the merits of this matter so that there’s clarity in terms of the powers of the IR as well as the responsibilities of the department,’ he said.
Mhlanga clarified that the court matter did not affect the department’s core responsibility to deliver results to candidates at their exam centres. He emphasised that the debate centred on the optional platforms used to distribute results, a practice the department had followed for more than 40 years, with no additional cost to providing the results to the media
“We are just here to talk about those additional platforms that learners should benefit from in terms of accessing results. So we’ll proceed as normal. Whether there’s a win or there’s a loss, it doesn’t matter. We are here to seek real clarity in terms of the responsibilities of these two entities,” he said. DM