MISA welcomes the draft African Guidelines as a significant step towards ensuring transparency and accountability in data collection, processing, storage, and access, in line with regional and international human rights standards.
The Guidelines are appropriately aligned with the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) Resolution 620 on Promoting and Harnessing Data Access as a Tool for Advancing Human Rights and Sustainable Development in the Digital Age.
The Guidelines embed data access within the established framework of the rights to information and to development.
Data access is part of the right to information and is vital to democracy and sustainable development. Member States and private actors must therefore ensure that data is accessible, transparent, and secure.
This necessitates comprehensive guidelines on data collection, storage, sharing, and use, which are publicly available in line with the principle of maximum disclosure, except where regional and international best practice justifies otherwise.
In its submissions to the ACHPR, MISA identified several areas for strengthening the draft Guidelines and made the following recommendations:
Review and Update Mechanisms: The Guidelines should include provisions for regular review and updates to ensure their continued relevance and effectiveness in a rapidly evolving data landscape.
Rights of Marginalised Groups: The Guidelines should be more explicit about the needs and rights of specific groups, such as women, children, and persons with disabilities.
Data Localisation and Sovereignty: The Guidelines should provide clearer guidance on data localisation to help countries navigate complex data flows. There is a need to address African datasets held outside the continent and to emphasise the importance of accessing African data held externally. An additional clause linking data access to connectivity is needed, requiring States to invest in rural digital infrastructure.
Transparency and Technical Safeguards: The enforcement and compliance section should be strengthened by explicitly requiring impact assessments for large-scale public and private data projects before deployment, and by making these assessments publicly available. The Guidelines should also clarify liabilities and protections in relation to data misuse by third parties.
Data Literacy and Capacity Building: The Guidelines should include a specific provision to support the development of sector-specific toolkits that equip stakeholders with the skills to transform data into readable and explainable formats, particularly in health, agriculture, and education.
Conclusion
The draft African Guidelines on Access to Data mark a significant step towards comprehensive digital rights governance across the continent.
MISA submits that, if the above recommendations are adopted, the final instrument will be better placed to ensure that data serves as a tool for advancing human rights, democracy, and sustainable development in the digital age.
MISA Regional Communiqué
