The increasing availability of digital data reflecting economic and human development, and in particular the availability of data emitted as a by-product of people’s use of technological devices an...

What is data justice? The case for connecting digital rights and freedoms globally:

With the flagship success of m‐Pesa, financial services via mobile devices have become an important tool to facilitate the financial inclusion of the previously unbanked population in developing countries. Attempts to provide a landscape of academic research findings at the intersection of mobile financial services, financial inclusion, and development have been rather scant. To determine the key issues and gaps in the current academic research, this study conducts a systematic review of 54 academic research papers vis‐a‐vis the nexus of mobile financial services, financial inclusion, and development. The results show that the extant literature addresses three major clusters of topics: delivery, environmental factors, and the impact of mobile financial services. Still in the nascent stage of research, the topics covered in the literature indicate a bias towards institutional and individual preconditions for the implementation of mobile financial services, rather than actual supply and demand by users, and its impact on society. The choice of research methods also shows limited variety and depth. This study contributes towards understanding the existing research on mobile financial services for financial inclusion in developing countries and finding research gaps for future study.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/isd2.12044

Mobile financial services, financial inclusion, and development: A systematic review of academic literature

The role of ICTs in development is contested between those who believe they will facilitate human development and those who believe they are, at most, impotent, and at worst, counterproductive. This article uses an examination of M-PESA, a large-scale mobile financial service in Kenya, to argue that the impact of ICTs on development as freedom differs with both the specific conceptualization of freedom used, and the institutional arrangement of the technology in question. The article’s novel conceptual model links the adoption of mobile money to its impact, suggesting that the dominant individualistic and instrumental approaches to ICT4D overlook the ways in which power and domination function alongside freedom when these factors are considered relationally and substantively. I demonstrate that the internal plurality of the concept of freedom leads to both new forms of empowerment, but also to limitations on choice and new forms of dominance. In closing, I suggest institutional and technological arrangements that are most likely to maximize the development potential of mobile money.

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Mobile Money, More Freedom? The Impact of M-PESA’s Network Power on Development as Freedom

Information privacy in e-service : Effect of organizational privacy assurances on individual privacy concerns, perceptions, trust and self-disclosure behavior

Regulating Privacy: Data Protection and Public Policy in Europe and the United States Colin J. Bennett Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992, pp. xix, 263

A literature review is pivotal to any scientific research
or writing. Quite often a prudent researcher
may not embark on research or writing a
scientific piece of work without first reviewing
the literature. Yet this literature may sometimes
not be readily available, especially in a relatively
new area of scholarship, or its availability may be
challenging.
† In this article I survey the major literature on
privacy and data protection in Africa as an emerging
field of law.
† I argue that currently this literature is underdeveloped.
† I offer a modest proposal that efforts have to be
directed towards training, researches, networking,
the creation of modern libraries, inter-country/
sub- or regional discussions and establishing
journals specifically dedicated to privacy and data
protection law issues.

/pdf/privacy-and-data-protection-in-africa-a-state-of-the-art-3rkk7gaek5.pdf

Privacy and data protection in Africa: a state of the art

Over four decades of the development of data protection laws, the world has witnessed data protection regimes finally arriving in Africa. At present, there are eleven African countries out of 54 with comprehensive data protection legislation. These are Cape Verde (22 January 2001), Seychelles (24 December 2003), Burkina Faso (20 April 2004), Mauritius (17 June 2004), Tunisia (27 July 2004), Senegal (15 January 2008), Morocco (18 February 2009), Benin (27 April 2009), Angola (17 June 2011), Gabon (25 September 2011), and Ghana (10 February 2012). At the same time, in an attempt to harmonize the emerging national data protection legislation and perhaps to prevent disruption of flow of personal data, in 2010 the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) adopted a sub-regional framework for its member states. In contrast, in the same year the East African Community (EAC) adopted data privacy recommendations for its members. While these recommendations do not stipulate substantive data protection principles as is the case with most other sub-regional and regional codes of data protection, they intend to encourage the member states to align with the international best practices. The Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the African Union (AU) are still considering drafts of data privacy instruments. As is the case elsewhere, the emerging data protection regime in Africa is partly influenced by the European Union Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC. The international regime for the transfer of personal data contained in the Directive 95/46/EC, particularly Articles 25–26, is most frequently cited by commentators as one of the forces behind this development. Article 25 of the EU Directive restricts the transfer of personal data to third countries, that is non EU/EEA countries, unless such countries afford an ‘adequate’ level of data protection. However, under Article 26 of Directive 95/ 46/EC personal data may still be transferred from EU/ EEA to third countries even if such countries fail to pass the ‘adequacy’ test. Yet, this is only a limited option as it is a derogation from the main rule in Article 25 of the Directive. Undoubtedly, the requirements of Article 25 of Directive 95/46/EC necessitated the above four African

Data Protection Regimes in Africa: too far from the European ‘adequacy’ standard?

Myth and reality of harmonisation of data privacy policies in Africa

Four decades have passed since the discourse on privacy had emerged. Nonetheless it has been claimed that Africans do not value privacy. Commentators in the field of data privacy argue that Africans live in collectivist culture. The latter denies an individual a private sphere for exercising the right to privacy. Despite the over dominance of this scholarship, there remains a dissatisfying lack of comprehensive explanation for the concept and value of privacy in Africa. Partly this is due to a fallacy that Africa is a static and unchanging society. Also part of this assumption though intertwined in the first set is the over dominance of the claim that individualism as such is a pre-condition for privacy to take shape and develop. In this article I refute these generalised claims and argue that privacy is an evolving concept in Africa. Although at the moment concerns for privacy are generally relatively low compared to the Western individualist culture, such concerns are emerging and privacy regulation is developing as a response.

/pdf/a-person-is-a-person-through-other-persons-a-critical-4k5r59t5e0.pdf

"A Person Is a Person through Other Persons"—A Critical Analysis of Privacy and Culture in Africa

The increased pervasiveness of technology in Africa has increasingly facilitated the growth of mobile financial services. In Africa where financial inclusion is so limited, mobile financial services provide avenue for majority urban and rural population to participate in economic activities. Yet until recently Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) have dominated the mobile financial services. Banks and financial institutions which are traditionally the subject of the regulatory ambit of central banks have only recently taken interests in the mobile financial services. Quite often this has been done by partnering with MNOs. To this end, central banks in Africa have developed guidelines and regulations to bring MNOs of financial services under their regulatory authority. This article is set to analyse bank guidelines as well as regulations on electronic payment systems from the perspective of the right to privacy of customers in Africa. Illustrations of regulatory issues raised in this article are drawn from different African countries. Particularly, the author of this article argues that although the traditional banker’s duty of secrecy which restricts bankers from disclosing information about their customers might still be applicable to mobile money providers, it may not be adequate to secure such information. Similarly, the recently developed mobile money regulations by central banks in Africa are limited to secure the right to privacy in the mobile financial services. K E Y W O R D S : mobile money, data protection, privacy, central banks, Africa H I S T O R Y A N D C O N T E X T Over 80 per cent of the Africa’s population is unbanked. This population is largely found in rural areas. Geographical inaccessibility and poor infrastructure account for this state of affair. At the same time, the high cost of banking services and a lack of financial education and understanding create very high barriers to banking for poor rural populations. Studies have found that financial inclusion, which means the proportion of individuals and firms that use financial services, is important for * Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Faculty of Law (Humboldt Foundation), University of Bremen; Email: alex.makulilo@uni-bremen.de. 1 World Bank, Global Financial Development Report 2014: Financial Inclusion (2014) 21. 2 iVeri Payment Technologies, ‘Accessing the Unbanked: Branchless Banking in Africa’ (2014) 2.

Alex B. Makulilo

Papers

Privacy and data protection in Africa: a state of the art

Data Protection Regimes in Africa: too far from the European ‘adequacy’ standard?

Myth and reality of harmonisation of data privacy policies in Africa

"A Person Is a Person through Other Persons"—A Critical Analysis of Privacy and Culture in Africa

Privacy in mobile money: central banks in Africa and their regulatory limits