Promoting Effective and Inclusive ICT Policy in Africa

Category Archives: Online Freedoms

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05Mar

Promoting Cultural and Artistic Expression in Africa

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By Ashnah Kalemera
As humans, individual artists enjoy rights enshrined in national laws and international instruments on freedom of expression, assembly and association. However, there are variations between countries on what the laws provide for and the level of freedoms of creative, artistic and cultural expression that citizens enjoy.
In Africa, various factors impact upon these freedoms – including political, religious, social-economic and cultural issues. According to the ArtWatch Africa 2013 report on Monitoring Freedom of Creative Expression, national constitutions, laws, regional and international conventions of which African countries are signatories support cultural rights. However, while some national constitutions expressly protect arts and creativity, others only “implicitly” refer to the sector through guaranteeing the rights to freedom of expression or cultural life.
The report indicates that only a few African countries have ratified international conventions on cultural and artistic expression, and even less have national cultural policies. The situation is further compounded by little or no state and civil society mechanisms to monitor adherence to countries’ commitments to upholding cultural and artistic rights.
Table 1: Status of the Legal Framework of Cultural and Artists Rights in Select East African Countries
 

Country Status of International, National and Regional Instruments related to Cultural and Artists Rights
National Cultural Policy University Declaration of Human Rights UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expression International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights International Covenant on Economic, Social, Cultural and Political Rights The African Charter on Human and People’s Rights
Burundi None Recognises the Declaration as state party to the United Nations Ratified 2008 Ratified 1990 Ratified 1990 Ratified 1989
Ethiopia Cultural Policy 1997 Ratified 2008 Ratified 1993 Ratified 1993 Ratified 1998
Kenya Culture and Heritage Policy 2009 Ratified 2007 Ratified 1972 Ratified 1972 Ratified 1992
Rwanda Draft Cultural Policy in 2010 Ratified 2012 Ratified 1975 Ratified 1975 Ratified 1981
Uganda Culture Policy 2006 Not party Ratified 1995 Ratified 1987 Ratified 1986

Accordingly, ArtWatch Africa is working to advance freedom of creative and cultural expression in Africa. In November 2014, ArtWatch Africa in collaboration with Culture and Development East Africa (CDEA), organised a workshop to deepen key Tanzanian stakeholders’ understanding of cultural and artistic rights and to explore approaches in addressing the challenges faced in the national cultural sector. The three-day event was part of a series of workshops organised by ArtWatch Africa’s project that monitors the challenges and constraints on freedom of creative expression in Africa towards developing democracy and human rights on the continent.
Participants at the Tanzania workshop identified a number of challenges faced by local artists, including limited networks and alliances that advocate for artists’ rights. The few existing artists associations had prohibitive member subscription fees. Meanwhile, low media coverage and interest in arts and culture affected information availability in the public domain and advocacy campaigns.
Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) offer a potential to promote cultural and artistic expression but can also act as platforms for negating these rights. For instance, tools such as social media can be utilised to advance freedom of expression, build networks of like-minded organisations and enable individuals to share, seek and impart relevant information. On the other hand, the tools can be used to control arts and culture through classification restrictions on publishing and dissemination of content on grounds of age, blasphemy and censorship, among others.
During 2015, the OpenNet Africa project will be seeking to work with visual and performing artists to understand and promote freedom of expression, notably on the internet through their work and networks in Africa – both as targets for education campaigns and as agents of activism. This is in line with the project’s objectives of promoting access to information, privacy, safety and security online. OpenNet Africa is an initiative of the Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA) in partnership with the Humanist Institute for Cooperation with Developing Countries (Hivos) and the Open Technology Fund.
 

12Feb

Promoting Online Safety in Africa

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The global community on February 10 marked Safer Internet Day which promotes safe and responsible use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) mainly amongst children and young people across the world.
The day provided an opportunity to see what African stakeholders are doing in promoting access to the internet and ensuring that this access comes with a culture of digital safety habits.
Companies like Google Africa in partnership with local organisations marked the day by hosting a series of events across the continent targeting youth and advocating for better internet practices. This included a hangout session that brought together audiences from Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Kenya.
In East Africa, the OpenNet Africa initiative held a twitter chat, to explore internet safety and security while questioning how various organisations are addressing these issues.


The discussion noted that a number of challenges exist in the online sphere due to the increased internet exposure for youth and adults alike. While the internet is a useful educational resource, it has become home to online child predators and even sparked trends in online bullying and the sharing of sensitive information amongst youth unaware of the repercussions that this may have.

According to the State of Internet Freedom in East Africa 2014 report, increasing internet usage in the region particularly access to social network sites such as Facebook and Twitter, has led to an increment in democratic participation and the expansion of opinion expressed in the public domain. Mobile phones were indicated as the main tool used to access the internet and youth constituted the largest proportion of social media users.
Many governments in the region, however, keep trying to play catch up with the rapidly changing digital landscape and in many instances fall short on guaranteeing the human rights afforded in their constitutions. This has been seen in the policy and legislative environment of many East African countries which impede internet freedoms, including by granting excessive surveillance power to the police without sufficient oversight, and curbing freedom of expression and freedom of the press primarily against those critical of the state.
The Twitterthon participants shared that despite the existence of pan-African frameworks such as African Union Convention On Cyber Security And Personal Data Protection and the Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression in Africa of 2002, few countries have adopted laws that safeguard privacy, protect data and guarantee freedom of expression in the online sphere.
Meanwhile, efforts to promote ICT access for the youth, including through ICT literacy curriculums, remained low. Consequently, incidents and concerns about cyber bullying, online abuse, data protection, surveillance and privacy have risen alongside the exponential growth that internet access has seen in Africa.  

For instance, chat participants from Tanzania expressed concern at not having adequate laws that protect the online rights of users, also pointing out the lack of a data protection law. In Kenya, a data protection Bill drafted back in 2013 has made little progress to date. While in Uganda, the review of the Data Protection and Privacy Bill drafted towards the end of 2014 is ongoing.


Other efforts towards safeguarding online safety shared included an online safety education toolkit  for Young People in Uganda developed by the Internet Society Uganda as part of its ongoing activities in the country.
See more of the Safer Internet Day Twitter chat on Promoting internet Safety in Africa on Storify.

09Feb

Reflections on Uganda’s Draft Data Protection and Privacy Bill, 2014

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Towards the end of 2014, Uganda’s government through the National Information Technology Authority (NITA-U), Ministry of Information Communication and Technology (MoICT) and the Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs (MOJCA) issued a draft Data Protection and Privacy Bill for public comment. The Bill seeks to protect the privacy of the individual and personal data by regulating the collection and processing of personal information. It provides for the rights of persons whose data is collected and the obligations of data collectors and data processors; and regulates the use or disclosure of personal information.
The Collaboration on International ICT Policy in East and Southern Africa (CIPESA) welcomes the move by the Uganda Government, however, following an analysis of the Bill, we identified some areas of concern and gaps that need to be addressed. We have assembled our comments as part of the CIPESA ICT briefing series and have also submitted official comments to the government as part of the public comments phase.
Read more on our Reflections on Uganda’s Draft Data Protection and Privacy Bill, 2014 in the CIPESA ICT Briefing series and see our Formal Comments Submitted for consideration.

15Dec

Call for Partnerships: Technology/Innovation Institutions

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The Collaboration on International ICT Policy in East and Southern Africa (CIPESA) is seeking partnerships with local tech communities in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi and Ethiopia to generate an empirical understanding in an [East] African context, of online safety and security technologies for ICT/internet users in the region. Each tech institution will work with CIPESA to bring together various competencies and networks to address the various internet freedoms challenges faced in the region.
The partnerships are in the context of the OpenNet Africa initiative (www.opennetafrica.org) which is aimed at promoting internet freedom in the region through digital security and safety skills development, creating awareness on the status of online freedoms, building a network of the region’s actors in this domain, and advocacy to engender more progressive digital rights regimes. OpenNet Africa is supported by the Humanist Institute for Co-operation with Developing Countries (Hivos), the Open Technology Fund (OTF) and the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto.
Closing date for applications: Friday January 9, 2015
Further details on the scope, eligibility and how to apply are available here.

02Jul

Vodafone Reveals Government Requests for Subscriber Information

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By Ashnah Kalemera & Juliet N. Nanfuka
The true extent of governments’ surveillance and monitoring of citizens’ communications across the world remains largely unknown. This is despite legislative rights provisions for privacy and increased calls for data protection of citizens in their communications.
Last month, Vodafone became the first telecomuminications company to reveal the extent of government surveillance of its subscribers. In its Law Enforcement Disclosure Report, the company revealed that governments in some of the 29 countries in which it operates – including in Africa – are requesting its subscribers’ data sometimes without warrants. In addition, government agencies also listen in on subscribers’ conversations and monitor their whereabouts through wires connected to the Vodafone networks.
However, the British company and world’s second largest mobile phone operator could not disclose the full extent of surveillance in nine of the countries it operates in due to legal provisions prohibiting the disclosure of information relating to government wiretapping and interception of communications.
Vodafone operates in eight African countries, namely the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa, Lesotho, Tanzania, Mozambique (in all of which it operates as Vodacom), Kenya (as Safaricom), Egypt and Ghana. In 2013, the company received around 100,000 requests from African governments for metadata such as phone numbers, addresses, device locations and times of calls and text messages.
The report cites the Tanzanian government as having made the highest number of requests – 98, 765. Authorities in Congo made 436 requests while in Lesotho 488 requests, were made.
Due to laws restricting the disclosure of information related to law enforcement, Vodafone was unable to publish statistics on the other five African states where it has operations.
According to the report, in Egypt, local criminal laws prohibit the disclosure of national security-related information and other matters related to law enforcement. In Ghana, unclear legal restrictions on access to, transfer and disclosure of electronic records meant that Vodafone was unable to publish information on the demands made. “We have asked the [Ghana] authorities for guidance: however, we have not yet received a reply.” said the report.
Vodafone was also unable to publish statistics related to the Kenyan government’s request for individual communications data due to unclear provisions in the Official Secrets Act and the National Intelligence Services Act. Unclear legal provisions in Mozambique meant that the same statistics could not be published.
Similarly, South Africa’s Regulation on Interception of Communication and Provision of Communication-related Information Act prohibits the disclosure of the fact that any demand for lawful interception or communications data has been issued under the Act. Accordingly, Vodafone did not publish any statistics for the country.
The legal provisions preventing Vodafone from indicating the exact number of government requests for its subscriber information, instances of lawful interceptions or even any indication of interception capabilities, is telling of the degree to which some governments will go to hide the extent of their surveillance.
In the report, Vodafone disclosed that it had not implemented the technical requirements necessary to enable lawful interception in Congo, Kenya, Lesotho, Ghana, Tanzania and Mozambique and as such had not received any demands from those authorities for lawful interception assistance.
Vodafone Communication Interception and Data Requests in Africa
(Source: Country-by-country disclosure of law enforcement assistance demands Report)

Country Communications meta data requests Implementation of technical capacity for lawful interception
Democratic Republic of Congo 436 None
Egypt Disclosure of information is unlawful
Ghana Disclosure of information is unlawful None
Kenya Disclosure of information is unlawful None
Lesotho 488 None
Mozambique Disclosure of information is unlawful None
South Africa Disclosure of information is unlawful
Tanzania 98,765 None

Vodafone reported that similar to Egypt and South Africa, the disclosure of information related to interception of communications and government data requests was unlawful in India, Qatar, Romania and Turkey.
In Europe, Italy made the highest metadata requests to the company – a total of 605,601. This was followed by Hungary (75,938), Spain (48,679) and Portugal (28,145). The governments of Albania, Ireland and Malta made 7,667, 4,124 and 3,773 metadata requests respectively. Two requests were received from Belgium and three from France. From the South Pacific, 760 metadata requests were received from Fiji.
The report states that Australia, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, New Zealand and the United Kingdom were the only countries whose authorities published statistics on interception of communications and requests for communications metadata.
Vodafone’s report brings to the fore the intermediary liability challenge faced by many other telecommunications service providers across the world. The company published its statistics in an effort to urge all states to publish annual data on the surveillance and monitoring of citizens via digital technologies. Indeed, a similar recommendation was made by a research report published in May 2014 on the State of Internet Freedoms in East Africa. The report revealed the use of legal and extra-legal means to snoop on citizens under the guise of national security in the six countries studied – Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.
While Vodafone has broken its silence on this highly secretive issue, it remains to be seen whether other service providers will follow suit or whether governments will change their legal provisions to allow for increased transparency in surveillance.

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