Right of access to records of private bodies
(1) A requester must be given access to any record of a private body if (a) that record is required for the exercise or protection of any rights; (b) that person complies with the procedural requirements in this Act relating to a request for access to that record; and (c) access to that record is not refused in terms of any ground for refusal contemplated in Chapter 4 of this Part.
(2) In addition to the requirements referred to in subsection (1), when a public body, referred to in paragraph (a) or (b)(i) of the public body in section 1, requests access to a record of a private body for the exercise or protection of any rights, other than its rights, it must be acting in the public interest.
(3) A request contemplated in subsection (1) includes a request for access to a record containing personal information about the requester or the person on whose behalf the request is made.
What this means in practice
- This is the core private-body duty: you must give access to a record if it is required to exercise or protect a right, the requester follows the procedure, and no refusal ground in Chapter 4 applies.
- “Any record” is broad it includes records that contain the requester's own personal information.
- A public body requesting your records for someone else's rights must additionally be acting in the public interest (subsection (2)).
PopiGuard turns s.50 into a workable intake process logging each request, testing it against the three requirements, and tracking the clock.