African Data Privacy Laws

This volume presents analyses of data protection systems and of 26 jurisdictions with data protection legislation in Africa, as well as additional selected countries without comprehensive data protection laws. In addition, it covers all sub-regional and regional data privacy policies in Africa. Apart from analysing data protection law, the book focuses on the socio-economic contexts, political settings and legal culture in which such laws developed and operate. It bases its analyses on the African legal culture and comparative international data privacy law.

In Africa protection of personal data, the central preoccupation of data privacy laws, is on the policy agenda. The recently adopted African Union Cyber Security and Data Protection Convention 2014, which is the first and currently the only single treaty across the globe to address data protection outside Europe, serves as an illustration of such interest. In addition, there are data protection frameworks at sub-regionallevels for West Africa, East Africa and Southern Africa. Similarly, laws on protection of personal data are increasingly being adopted at national plane. Yet despite these data privacy law reforms there is very little literature about data privacy law in Africa and its recent developments. This book fills that gap. 

“The proper use of section headings … is greatly helpful for processing the substance in the first read and locating the information when needed later on. The comprehensive, detailed lists of references, legislations, cases and additional resources … make them competent as convenient reference books for students, researchers and practitioners studying data protection law in those jurisdictions. … serve as valuable sources of comparative materials, and thus help gain a better understanding of other data protection regimes.” (Jiahong Chen, International Journal of Law and Information Technology, Vol. 25 (3), 2017)

Alex B. Makulilo (Dr.jur) is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute for Information, Health and Medical Law (IGMR), Faculty of Law at the University of Bremen in Germany. Prior to that Makulilo worked as a Senior Lecturer of Information and Communications Law at the Open University of Tanzania, the academic rank he still holds today. He is an advocate of the High Court of Tanzania. Makulilo is also a member of the Advisory Committee of the International Privacy Law Library (http://www.worldlii.org/int/special/privacy) of the World Legal Information Institute. He possesses considerable and diverse experience both in academia and legal industry with a keen research, teaching, and practitioner focus on Information and Communication Technology Law as it relates to privacy, data protection, intellectual property, cybersecurity, electronic commerce, and internet governance in Africa. Makulilo has published numerous articles and book reviews on these subjects in international peer-review journals and has presented at national and international conferences. His first book Privacy and Data Protection in Africa (2014) is a pioneering work for data privacy in Africa. Makulilo holds a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, Master of Laws in Information and Communications Technology Law from the University of Oslo in Norway and Doctor Juris (suma cum laude) from the University of Bremen in Germany.