The analysis of the sphere of movement building and internet governance in North Africa leads inevitably to assess the shrinking of digital space and online mobilisation during the COVID-19 pandemic in the region.
This article analyses the challenge of internet access faced by women and other marginalised groups such as persons with disabilities in Uganda during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. It discusses how limited or no access to the internet affects women’s digital human rights, as set out in the African Declaration on Internet Rights and Freedoms (African Declaration).
Looking to South Africa as an example, human rights frameworks will be used to demonstrate how both privacy and access to information can serve to provide the nuance needed in assessing contact tracing, locally.
Data protection in Africa can still be described to be in its nascent stage. Most African states do not have a data protection law. Countries on the continent are divided along the lines of countries with a data protection law, countries with fragmented frameworks, and countries without any semblance of a law. Out of the 55 states on the continent, only 28 countries have a data protection law, of which 15 have set up data protection authorities (DPAs) to enforce the law.
This essay employs the use of the South African government’s contact tracing initiatives in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and some public perceptions on these initiatives to assess whether the social contract theory can be employed as a tool to justify privacy violations for public health.
This paper by David Makwerere engages with the question of digital rights for prisoners in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and how these can play a part in keeping the prisoners connected to the rest of the world, while also arming them with necessary social, technological and economic skills for post-prison life.
In this article, Charley Lewis examines how policy makers, regulators and service providers responded to the COVID-19 explosion. The focus is specifically on the ICT sector, on telecoms and the internet, looking at some of the slew of ICT sector-specific measures, ranging from public service messaging, though temporary spectrum assignment and zero-rating of educational and health websites, to those actions intended to make access and services more affordable.
Principle 8 of the African Declaration on Internet Rights and Freedoms provides for the right to online privacy, including the protection of every person’s personal data. Such a right and such protection have become necessary because of the uses of personal data and data in general. It used to be that a person’s personal space was limited. However, emerging technologies have allowed for entities to make use of data and personal data in a manner that provides strategic advantages.
The Secretariat of the African Declaration on Internet Rights and Freedoms Coalition announces the launch of the Coalition’s COVID-19 & Digital Rights Rapid Response Fund. The Fund is an extension of the Strategic Advocacy Fund that forms part of the project “Securing human rights online in Africa through a strong and active ‘African Declaration on Internet Rights and Freedoms’ network” (AfDec project).
