Appeal court lets Information Regulator fight on over matric results in newspapers

The country’s highest appeal court has handed the Information Regulator a fresh chance to argue that publishing matric results in newspapers, even with names replaced by examination numbers, still breaks privacy law.

The Supreme Court of Appeal granted the regulator leave to appeal a High Court ruling that allowed the Department of Basic Education to keep printing results using examination numbers to shield learners’ identities. The High Court had refused leave in June 2026, which appeared to close the matter. That refusal has now been set aside.

The dispute stretches back to 2022, when the department changed how it announced results in newspapers. Before that, each learner’s full name appeared beside their results. Groups working on mental health and learner welfare argued that practice harmed young people at the most exposed moment of their school careers, and the department responded by stripping out the names and printing examination numbers instead. It then planned to stop the newspaper announcements altogether.

That plan drew a challenge from AfriForum and others, who argued the public had a right to see results published. The fight unfolded against the arrival of the Protection of Personal Information Act, the law that governs how organisations may hold and share information about individuals.

In 2024 the regulator issued an enforcement notice, saying that even with names removed, the publication of results using examination numbers still fell foul of that law. The department did not comply. It went ahead and published the 2024 results with examination numbers, and the court found that decision correct.

Where the argument now sits

AfriForum’s head of cultural affairs, Alana Bailey, said the case reaches well beyond one set of school results. She said the regulator has not grasped how little the litigation can achieve, or the dangers that would follow if it won.

Bailey said the regulator is playing power games while the future of information that ought to be disclosed in the public interest hangs on the outcome.

AfriForum has argued throughout that the ability to publish information identified by codes matters far beyond education. It says research across many fields depends on data about individuals who can be identified only by numbers or codes, and that this is done deliberately so those people cannot be picked out. Matric results work the same way, in its view.

The organisation describes the matter as one with wide consequences, because it forces a court to weigh the right to privacy against the public’s interest in knowing. If the regulator’s position prevails, other industries that publish information in coded form could face the same objection.

The regulator has held its ground. In its application to the High Court it said it remains firm that judicial processes can help clarify parts of the law, particularly what is required of bodies such as the Department of Basic Education when they hold personal information about the people in their care. It said it stands by the view that the courts can illuminate the obligations of parties responsible for that data.

What it means for the class of 2026

For learners and their families, the practical question is whether results will still appear in newspapers at all, and in what form. The department has already moved once, from full names to examination numbers. The regulator wants the courts to say that even the numbers go too far.

For everyone else, the stakes are wider. Coded publication is how researchers, statisticians and industry bodies release information about people without exposing them. A ruling that codes are themselves personal information would redraw that line across the economy, not only in education.

The appeal will now proceed, and the Supreme Court of Appeal will hear argument on where the boundary between privacy and public interest falls. Until it rules, the department’s practice of publishing results with examination numbers stands.

Source: BusinessTech, Battle over changes for matric results in South Africa