World Peace Forum: digital data protection another challenge for Africa

Heads of state and government around French President Emmanuel Macron at the opening of the Forum for Peace in Paris.

November 11, 2021. AFP - LUDOVIC MARIN

Text by: RFI Follow

2 min

The protection of digital data is one of the main themes of the World Peace Forum, which ends this Saturday, November 13.

Africa is slow to protect the personal data of computer and "smartphone" users while the continent is particularly in the sights of internet giants at the moment.

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Qemal Affagnon, Internet Without Borders spokesperson for West Africa, calls on the states of the continent to equip themselves with an effective legal framework: “

The African continent today constitutes an important reservoir of users of digital services.

When we look for example at an actor like Facebook which is working on the installation of submarine cables which should be operational by next year

; Facebook is aware of this important growth driver represented by personal data. The concern is that these users today in Africa are young. We are therefore witnessing a profusion of the use of mobile telephony. These are users who are unfortunately mostly illiterate. So Africa today is an easy target. So, we attract the attention of political dissidents, because there is also, as we have seen through

the Cambridge Analytica affair

 political implications at the level of manipulation of the organization of elections.

There is currently Algeria, Benin, Burkina Faso, Lesotho, Madagascar.

There are around 30 countries that currently have data protection laws.

Of these thirty countries, a little more than ten have a data protection authority.

And therefore, we are trying to make a plea so that the number of countries which acquire a legal arsenal increases on the continent

”.

Strengthen the legal framework

Data regulation also remains a major issue for the development of artificial intelligence, but how can we ensure the protection of personal data? Elements of response with Mamoudou Niane, permanent secretary of the Commission for the protection of personal data of Senegal. For him, it is therefore necessary that the legal framework of African countries is strong, but also " 

strengthen the authority of commissions or personal data control authorities so that these authorities can ensure the compliance of all processing operations that take place on the African continent.

Finally, we must insist with the users of the African population which is very young by a strong action around digital education.

And finally to educate them to take the right actions and take advantage of digital opportunities while trying to reduce the risks associated with this digital precisely

”.

See also:

World Peace Forum: meeting of opportunities in Paris for African leaders

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