Data protection in Africa

The African continent is ripe with business opportunities. During the latter part of 2022, there have been several conferences in South Africa, showcasing Africa as a digital business hub with plenty of promise. However, if you operate or have customers in Africa, you should be thinking about how data protection laws may impact your day-to-day operations. For example, you should be asking yourself:

• Do you have to register as a data controller in that country?
• Do you need any authorisation to process a particular type of personal information?
• Are you allowed to transfer personal information out of the country to your head office?

You must know what Africa’s regulatory landscape is like.

What laws apply to your processing?

The number of data protection laws in Africa is on the rise. For example, more than 30 African countries have enacted data protection laws and several more countries introduced data protection Bills for consideration. These new and existing data protection laws create new compliance obligations. That’s why it is important for organisations that have a presence, or customers in Africa, to understand the data protection laws that apply to them.

Will joining this lens help my organisation comply?

Yes. That’s the short answer. We understand that you may be working with limited resources and budgets. We want to help you in the most efficient and cost-effective way.  Our data protection in Africa lens will help you. This lens combined with our practical core programme takes you through the key actions that your organisation must take to process personal data in Africa lawfully.

Our data protection in Africa lens is worth joining for any organization that has a footprint in Africa. It is especially useful to anyone who processes personal data in Africa, or tranfers personal data to an African country.

Not everyone in your organisation needs to go through this programme. We believe your core data protection team should join and work through the programme. This core team could include:

• your Data Protection Officer (or Information Officer),
• accounting officers,
• someone from IT,
• legal practitioners (legal and compliance),
• risk managers,
• your project manager,
• other relevant senior managers.

When you join our data protection in Africa lens, we will help you keep current with the latest data protection developments in Africa. We help you with tools to:

• Reduce your overall costs of complying with data protection law in Africa by working through the lens yourself with our assistance.
• Know about data protection laws in Africa by getting an overview of the data protection landscape in Africa.
• Review your organisation’s compliance framework by knowing which African data protection laws specifically apply to you.
• Protect personal data quickly by finding out what data protection quick wins you can score.

• We believe in using the law as a tool to prevent harm from coming to people.
• We have significant practical experience dealing with data protection law.
• We cover only those areas of data protection law that are most relevant to you, saving you time and money.
• We provide insight and simplify the issues, empowering you to work through the obligations yourself.

You can work through this lens at your own pace and go as fast or slow as you like. Depending on the data protection processes you already have in place, it could take you a few hours or a few weeks to work through this lens.