§ Experia Systems · Journal
Notes from the practice.
Case studies, engineering notes, and the occasional opinion. Written by the people who run the systems.
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How long to keep client records
POPIA caps retention at purpose while FICA, tax and company law set minimums. A retention schedule names both numbers for every record type.
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What your PAIA manual is for
Every private body needs a PAIA manual since the exemptions lapsed in 2021. The Regulator checks it first because it is the easiest thing to check.
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The R600,000 email
A South African nonprofit paid R600,000 to attackers who imitated a familiar email thread. How business email compromise works, and the one habit that stops it.
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Your software vendor is a POPIA operator
Every supplier that touches your client data is a POPIA operator, and section 21 requires a written contract. Most supplier files hold only an SLA.
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Direct marketing after the 2026 CPA amendments
South Africa now has a national opt-out registry for direct marketing, with penalties reaching R1 million or 10% of turnover. What the 2026 CPA amendments ask of any business that markets directly.
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Where did this lead come from?
A financial services client could not connect leads to the spend that produced them. A UTM structure, an enforced media runbook, and a forms service that keeps tracking metadata made the funnel measurable.
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ITC consent without the paper chase
Credit check consent used to take days of chasing a signed form. Now the agent shows a QR code and the client completes the declaration from their own phone in seconds.
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Digitizing FICA beneficial ownership declarations
The brief asked for a PDF upload button. We proposed digitizing the whole journey: declaration forms for natural and juristic clients, and campaigns that chase so the compliance team does not have to.
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Release is a human gesture
Machines prepare releases. People make them. The rule that runs through every pipeline we operate.
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Priced by the story point
Hours price attendance. Points price what ships. How our commercial model does the work of a process framework.