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16Sep

Apply for Data Driven Advocacy Sketchathon at FIFAfrica21

Author CIPESA Posted on

Call for Applications |

Do you want to use data for advocacy but you’re not sure where to start? Would you like to transform statistics into compelling stories? Are you passionate about a digital rights cause, and want to convince others to join your efforts?

In the lead up to the Forum on Internet Freedom in Africa 2021 (FIFAfrica21), the Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA) and Data4Change will host a virtual data sketchathon and series of critical discussions to get you thinking more about how to use data in digital rights advocacy. The sketchathon will take place on Monday 27 September 2021.

The schedule
Starting at 10am East African Time (EAT) and finishing at 5pm EAT, the sketchathon will entail a combination of live Zoom sessions and self-paced activities.

We’ll use the answers in your application forms to set an agenda for the group discussions as we explore themes like: data biases; representation, accessibility and ownership of data; and data inequalities. You’ll also have an opportunity to work in small groups to map your data advocacy aspirations and to tackle some of the data questions you’re grappling with as individuals or organisations.

Participants will also have an opportunity to create a data design using data from the #KeepItOn campaign Shutdown Tracker Optimisation Project.

Who should apply
There are no prerequisites, and literally anybody can apply. We are looking for people who are passionate about uncovering the potential of using numbers to drive forward emotive stories that have the power to advance digital rights preferably in Lesotho, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

A limited number of spaces are available for the workshop. We endeavour to create diverse and collaborative spaces and to foster a sense of community that lasts beyond the event and will strive to create a balanced representation of different geographies, abilities, and approaches among participants.

How to apply
Submit this form before 18.00 East African Time on Wednesday September 22, 2021.

Successful applicants will be notified by Friday September 24, 2021. A modest reimbursement will be provided for participants’ connectivity costs.

09Aug

Data Protection in Africa in the Age of Covid-19

Author CIPESA Writer Posted on

By Boel McAteer and Jean-Benoît Falisse |

As the Covid-19 pandemic spread around the world in the early part of 2020, governments and companies invested substantial resources in gathering data about suspected and confirmed cases, and related behaviours. Learning more about how the virus was spreading was a top priority around the world, and with this came new practices of sharing medical records, tracking people’s movements and tracing their contacts. This has created new norms for data governance in many countries, and in this brave new world of disease surveillance, it is more important than ever to understand data protection and privacy, and where these concepts fit in with the new priorities of managing the pandemic.

The Covid Governance research project has gathered information about country-level data protection and Covid-19 practices across the world. Covering over 200 countries and territories, the project’s Data Protection Explorer Tool provides a snapshot of the legal environment surrounding data protection and privacy, and how it is changing in response to Covid-19. Crucially, it focuses on restrictions on data collection, processing and cross-border transfers.  It also captures digital monitoring measures in place for Covid-19, such as contact tracing, and who owns that data. This will help form a picture of what has changed within data ethics and surveillance during the pandemic, and in the long term what those changes might mean.

So what are some of the key patterns that we can see so far? A joint statement on Data Protection and Privacy in the Covid-19 Response from a number of United Nations (UN) organisations states that any changed practices due to Covid-19 should be legalised and rooted in human rights. However, the information collected via the Data Protection Explorer Tool shows that about a third of Africa’s 54 countries did not have comprehensive data protection laws enforced or in place before the pandemic. During the pandemic, constitutional rights have often been backtracked as a part of the crisis response.

 The Explorer’s data also shows that African countries without specific data protection laws are particularly exposed. Take Namibia for example, whereas no comprehensive data protection law inlaw is in place.  – there is, however, a draft bill in the works and public consultations were conducted in 2020. In the absence of a dedicated data protection framework,  t does not mean data protection is inexistant: as in other African countries, there are provisions in other Namibian laws related to personal data of citizens in specific sectors of the economy such as accounting and  banking (the Banking Institutions Act, 1998 and 2010 amendment) or the legal professions and accounting (Legal Practitioners Act, 15 of 1995 as amended).

The right to personal privacy is also enshrined in Namibia’s constitution as a human right, but this right is limited including in the interests of health and public safety. This allows the government to legally prioritise public health over other human rights throughout the pandemic. Indeed, when Namibia declared a state of emergency in March 2020, many constitutional freedoms were temporarily suspended. For instance, access to education could not be guaranteed anymore and places of worship (constitutive of religious freedom) were closed.

Covid-19 tracing and surveillance mostly occurred offline but the University of Namibia (UNAM) successfully launched a mobile app, named “NamCotrace”, that collects substantial personal information such as the geolocation of users. The app is connected to epidemiological data and the national healthcare system in real time. Whereas it is alleged that “privacy by design” is core to the app, Namibia’s prevailing privacy and data protection legislative environment leaves room for arbitrary abuse. Similarly, Nigeria has developed various Covid-19 apps but with minimal data protection legal safeguards in place, there is ample room for misuse.

The Data Protection Explorer Tool also shows that countries with data protection laws remain vulnerable too. In many instances, the laws have been amended to allow practices that were previously prohibited to take place during the pandemic. In South Africa for instance, the response to Covid-19 has been governed through the Disaster Management Act from 2002 that allows the National Disaster Management Centre to request from individuals or organs of state information it “reasonably requires” and to escalate the matter to parliament in case of failure.

In April 2020 a regulation was introduced to legalise contact tracing in South Africa. This created a tracing database of Covid-19 cases, managed by the National Department of Health, where personal information is gathered from anyone tested for Covid-19. Information collected and stored in the database includes name, residential address, ID and passport number. This means that even though the information is collected legally without consent from the individuals, it would be unlawful to use that data for any other purpose than the one specified in the regulation. Despite these provisions, concerns have been raised that the contact tracing enables government surveillance of the population, since the Director General of Health can track the location of anyone suspected to have Covid-19 through phone service providers.

At the other end of the continent, Iin West Africa’s Burkina Faso, the data protection law prohibits collection of personal data relating to health. It had not, at the time of writing, been amended. However, since 2019, a digital platform for health surveillance has been  is in place.: One Health is funded by USAID and combines data from three ministries concerned with zoonotic disease control.  in the same place. When the first cases of Covid-19 were detected in the country in 2020, however, the platform was adapted to include data on the new virus, tracing cases, and their contacts. This is, obviously, raising privacy (and legality) concerns.

There are also some inspiring examples. The B’Safe app in Botswana was developed as an alternative to a manual Covid-19 tracing system. Described as privacy-friendly and in line with the country’s data protection (and privacy) law that pre-dates the pandemic, the app recorded a decent initial adoption rate. However, without an established data protection authority to enforce the law and oversee the app’s roll out, security vulnerabilities within the app led to private citizens lodging a court case against the country’s Covid-19 task force challenging the apps  its safety. The progress of the case remains unclear to-date. However, it highlights the importance of independent data protection authorities, good examples of which include in Angola and Senegal, and the pandemic potentially being a decisive push in countries where they are yet to be established.

Where are we heading now? Data protection laws in Africa were rapidly developing in the years leading up to the pandemic, with many new laws influenced by the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which was adopted in 2016. The examples above show the many ways in which the data protection environment in Africa is changing with the pandemic.

As the general state of democracy and freedoms is deemed to be worsening since the outbreak of Covid-19, it will be important to continue to monitor developments in data protection and privacy: the pandemic could be the opportunity to speed up the process of establishing much-needed laws and enforcement agencies but it could also lead to them being less protective of citizens (and more permissive for government) than in the pre-Covid-19 world.

The Covid Governance Project is an initiative of the University of Edinburgh. It was developed with support from the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FDCD), the Global Challenges Research Fund – Scottish Funding Council, and the University of Edinburgh’s Challenge Investment Fund. Explore the Data Protection Explorer Tool.

03Jun

CIPESA, Rudi, Support Formation of Digital Rights Lawyers’ Coalition in DR Congo

Author CIPESA Posted on

By Ashnah Kalemera |

A coalition of public interest lawyers has been formed in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) with an aim to promote digital rights in the central African country. Comprising advocates from six cities- Bukavu, Goma, Kinshasa, Kisangani, Lubumbashi and Matadi – the coalition will provide support to members to grow their skills in digital rights litigation, and promote collaborative advocacy and research with other digital rights actors in the country.

The inaugural membership received two-days skills and knowledge building on the sidelines of the 2021 Haki Conference, which was organised by Rudi International. Hosted in partnership with the North Kivu Bar Association, the training benefitted 19 lawyers and explored DR Congo’s technology policy and legislative environment with a focus on consumer protection, data protection and privacy, and cybercrime as well as national trends in government internet controls. 

The role of strategic litigation in digital rights protection was also explored, drawing from the experience of an ongoing case against the 2018 internet shutdown. At the time the case was filed, blockages to communications were a persistent occurrence in the expansive country amidst growing concerns around access and affordability, surveillance, censorship and disinformation. Participants also benefited from a foundation course in digital safety and security. 

As part of the Haki Conference, members of the coalition deliberated on the need for a legal and regulatory framework responsive to the evolution of digital technologies in DR Congo and the role of the legal fraternity in the wider push for digital rights in Africa’s fourth most populous country. 

According to Rudi International’s Executive Director, Arsene Tungali, the formation of the lawyers’ coalition “adds more voices to the digital rights cause and has helped to enlarge Rudi’s network of supporters and allies.” He added: “Rudi is proud to have championed this initiative and to have been able to bring together a group of talented Congolese lawyers, equipped them with the basics and given them the opportunity to network among themselves.” 

The formation of the coalition and initial capacity building efforts were supported by the Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA) through the Africa Digital Rights Fund (ADRF). The initiative in Congo builds on CIPESA’s efforts to foster digital rights in Africa without leaving out key actors, such as legislators, the judiciary, bureaucrats, and private lawyers, who are crucial to the success of efforts like litigation, legal reforms, and enforcing respect for laws and rights. 

To this end, CIPESA has previously supported the 2019 Annual Jurists Conference of the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) Kenya chapter, where we conducted a digital rights strategic litigation training for judicial officers. This training followed a similar one on advancing collaboration in strategic litigation for digital rights which drew on learning from our case studies on strategic litigation suits in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. Similarly, at the 2020 Africa Law Tech Festival, we held sessions on strategic litigation and the digital economy that explored business models in the digital economy and rights-respecting policy approaches to advancing innovation, sustainable development and state revenue collection in the digital era.

22Mar

How Telecom Companies in Africa Can Respond Better to Internet Disruptions

Author admin Posted on

By Victor Kapiyo |
In recent years, disruptions to the internet and social media applications have emerged as a common and growing trend of digital repression especially in authoritarian countries in Africa. Since 2019, countries such as Algeria, Benin, Burundi, Cameroon, Chad, Côte d’ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo), Ethiopia, Gabon, Guinea, Mali, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda and Zimbabwe have either restricted or blocked access to the entire internet.
Internet disruptions are often ordered by governments requiring intermediaries such as telecommunications and internet service providers to slow internet speeds, block commonly-used social media sites, or block all internet access. As internet disruptions become widespread across the continent, it is important to examine the role of internet intermediaries in facilitating or impeding them.
A February 2021 brief by CIPESA shines the spotlight on intermediaries’ responses to government orders and indicates that while the intermediaries facilitate transactions, access to online information and services, and provide platforms for interaction, expression and citizen participation, they are usually caught up in the overarching control of their activities by the autocratic governance of host governments who usually place political control and dominance over the enjoyment of digital rights.
Consequently, intermediaries’ responses to internet disruption orders on the continent have almost always been of quiet obedience. Most have failed to take any steps to push back against government excesses. Airtel (Chad and Uganda), Africell (Uganda), Gabon Telecom, MTN (Cameroon and Uganda), Tigo Chad, and Zimbabwe’s Econet Wireless are among those that unquestioningly acquiesced to censorship orders by governments in compliance with their license conditions but also to safeguard their business interests. They appeared to remain silent even in the face of pressing demands to restore the internet, and in some instances denied having blocked the internet on their networks.
However, other intermediaries such as MTN Benin, Orange Guinea, and Lesotho’s Econet and Vodacom pushed back. These intermediaries shared publicly the government letters ordering disruptions, identified the government officials ordering the shutdowns, and disclosed the basis for the shutdowns. In some instances they engaged with authorities to make the case for maintaining uninterrupted access, resisted or declined to implement unlawful orders, apologized to the public for disruptions, or even compensated their customers for the downtime arising from the disruptions.
While some of these steps are laudable, more needs to be done by local intermediaries to resist future shutdowns, uphold consumer protection, and promote respect for human rights online. Many of these intermediaries seem to lack the backbone to resist or challenge in court the legality of internet shutdown directives. It remains problematic that they seem to put their business interests first, while paying limited attention to the human rights, social and economic implications of internet disruptions.
The CIPESA brief recommends that intermediaries improve transparency reporting; always insist on written instructions and orders from authorities, and promptly make these orders public; expand their partnerships and engagements with civil society and join key platforms that aim to collaboratively advance a free and open internet.
The brief also recommends that intermediaries give users sufficient notice of impending disruptions; engage regulators and push back against licensing conditions (and laws governing the telecoms sector) that are vague, or that could potentially lead to the violation of human rights; and speak out publicly about the harms which network disruptions cause to their subscribers and to the intermediaries themselves.
Further, intermediaries should develop and make public policies that specifically state their position on shutdowns and how they address any shutdown orders from governments; and strive to comply with the UN Business and Human Rights Principles (UNBHR).
The brief also calls upon individuals and the business community to challenge the actions of intermediaries before national, regional and international mechanisms for accountability and compensation of losses incurred as a result of their actions.
See the brief here.

South-Africa-Parliament-Rejects-Plan-to-Introduce-e-Voting
05Mar

South Africa’s Parliament Rejects Plan to Introduce e-Voting

Author CIPESA Posted on

By Tusi Fokane |

As South Africa prepares to hold local government elections in 2021, parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs has rejected two proposals contained in the Electoral Laws Amendment Bill, which could have seen the introduction of electronic voting in the country.

The rejected proposals were contained in clause 14, which suggested that the country’s Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) “may prescribe a different voting method” under the 1998 Electoral Act and clause 21 which sought to make a similar amendment to the Local Government: Municipal Electoral Act, 2000. The electoral body had intended to use these amendments to progressively introduce e-voting.

A report adopted by the Committee on December 1, 2020 notes that the introduction of different voting methods is a policy matter that “cannot be left to the IEC alone to decide” and emphasised that “explicit clarity must be given to the effect that the amendments do not authorise e-voting upon signing of the bill into law.”

The proposals were part of the Electoral Laws Amendment Bill which was introduced in September 2020 to amend legislation governing national, provincial and local government elections, including the forthcoming 2021 local government elections. Local government elections are set to take place between August 4 and November 1, 2021, although the final date is yet to be gazetted by the Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs.

The proposed amendments under the Bill seek to align three key pieces of electoral legislation, namely the Electoral Commission Act, the Electoral Act and the Local Government: Municipal Electoral Act. Besides proposals related to methods of voting, the other proposed amendments relate to  procedures regarding the registration of parties, the submissions of candidate lists by parties, the casting of votes in a district where a voter is not registered, and the protection of voters’ personal data against disclosure pursuant to the Protection of Personal Information Act.

 Proposals for electronic voting were first tabled by the IEC back in July 2020, when it indicated that electronic voting considerations were still in early stages and would first be trialled as a pilot. The Commission stated that electronic voting would help increase efficiencies in the existing system including counting and capturing of election results. There is currently no provision for online or postal voting in South Africa, as its prevailing electoral laws provide that voters must vote in person at their voting station.

The decision of the Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs to reject alternative methods of voting proposals followed complaints from various stakeholders. Consultations by the Portfolio Committee via the Dear South Africa platform received over 12,000 submissions from the general public and civil society. Many of the submissions received were against the adoption of the Electoral Laws Amendment Bill, citing constitutional concerns over the introduction of the electronic voting method. Members of the public took exception to the powers delegated to the electoral commission to change electoral policy without proper public participation and parliamentary oversight. Some commentators also criticised the short time-frame given for public input – two weeks –  from mid to end October 2020, although this was subsequently extended to November 6, 2020.

Submissions also raised concerns on the possibility of electoral fraud, hacking and the rigging of election results. There were also concerns raised about the costs of an e-voting system, given South Africa’s current fiscal constraints, as well as exclusion of communities who may not have access to digital technologies. As at January 2020, internet penetration in South Africa was estimated at 62%.

In response to concerns raised by members of the Committee regarding the public submissions, the IEC has argued that the proposed amendments were intended to create a framework for the piloting of electronic voting, as opposed to rolling it out fully in the country.

Whereas the Portfolio Committee acknowledged the beneficial role of technology in enhancing the electoral process, it cautioned against deploying technology without considering the necessary legal and constitutional implications. The Chairperson of the Committee noted that:

The truth of the matter is that technology is upon us and preparation must be started to ensure that we have both the legal framework and the technical experience that will ensure that elections are secure if a decision to vote through e-voting is taken..

In its statement, the Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs requested the IEC to return to Parliament with case studies on the implementation, challenges and successes of electronic voting in other countries.

In the 2009 general elections, the IEC introduced technological solutions to assist with processing of ballots. Four years later in 2013, the electoral body convened a seminar on Electronic Voting and Counting Technologies to assess the feasibility of electronic voting in South Africa. The then Chairperson of the IEC, Advocate Pansy Tlakula, noted that the country had not formally adopted a position on e-voting and that whilst e-voting presented some benefits such as speed and accuracy in vote counting, it would be expensive to monitor and could reduce transparency in the voting process. She also noted that there was no global standard for the verification and auditing of e-voting systems.

Electronic voting was once again put on the national agenda following the outcome of the ruling party’s June 2020 National Working Committee meeting. The African National Congress (ANC) reported that it had discussed “alternative methods of conducting elections, including the use of electronic voting” in light of the Covid-19 pandemic. This was followed by media reports that the IEC was considering launching an e-voting pilot in July, without providing any details on the roll-out. Shortly thereafter, in September, the IEC indicated that it had scrapped its planned pilot due to a lack of budget.

 While the matter is on hold pending a detailed report on international case studies, implications, challenges and successes of e-voting, it is important for the IEC to address the issues raised by stakeholders. These include ensuring the security and transparency of the processing and verification of votes, as well as ensuring that rural voters have access to reliable internet, electricity and networks to cast their e-ballots. Costs of financing the e-voting system also require careful consideration.

Another critical prerequisite is the need to ensure adequate public participation in amendments to laws governing the electoral system. This can be overcome by allowing Parliament to exercise its legislative role and ensuring members of the public are afforded the opportunity to deliberate on and make substantive inputs to proposed changes to electoral policy.

Tusi Fokane is a 2020 CIPESA Fellow focussing on the availability and use of digital technologies to combat the spread of Covid-19 in South Africa. She is also studying the country’s readiness for electronic voting to comply with social distancing and other movement restrictions during the upcoming local government elections.

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