Why proposed law on data privacy is too little, too late

 

Dr Eliamani Laltaika, a senior lecturer at the Nelson Mandela African Institute of Science and Technology, believes the proposed Tanzania Data Protection and Privacy Bill, 2014 has come “too little, too late”. PHOTO|CITIZEN PHOTOGRAPHER 

By By Zephania Ubwani The Citizen Reporter

In Summary

Experts are concern that so much personal data, including sensitive information, remain in the hands of private companies, especially now with liberalisation of the telephone sector and introduction of compulsory Sim card registration.

Arusha. With the referendum on the Proposed Constitution having been called off because of failure by the Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) to meet expectations of many, the issue has come under spotlight.

Experts are concern that so much personal data, including sensitive information, remain in the hands of private companies, especially now with liberalisation of the telephone sector and introduction of compulsory Sim card registration.

“Many of these private companies are foreign and there is a possibility that the data in their custody is shared by affiliated companies in and out of Africa,” said Dr Eliamani Laltaika, a senior lecturer at the Nelson Mandela African Institute of Science and Technology in an interview.

He said personal names, ethnic group and possibly religion, of most Tanzanians were freely available with most telephone companies “by merely a pretence of undertaking mobile money transfer”.

The lecturer in intellectual property, who was commenting on the proposed legislation on personal data and privacy expected to be tabled in the Parliament soon, wondered where the country was heading to in the absence of a comprehensive law to protect personal information.

“Now in the absence of a specific law to protect personal data, where, as a country, are we going, as far as privacy is concerned,” he asked here yesterday in an interview with The Citizen on Sunday.

Dr Laltaika, who is an expert in intellectual property and privacy law, took an issue with the proposed Tanzania Data Protection and Privacy Bill, 2014 which he believes has come “too little, too late”.

Article 16 for the Right to privacy, protection of the family and private communication is provided in the Constitution of 1977, but it was not until 1984 when it was enacted and 2013 when the government came up with the Bill.

The Data Protection and Privacy Bill, 2014 mandates the government to enact a law to ensure every person is entitled to respect and protection of his personal, the privacy of his own person, his family and of his matrimonial life and respect of his private communications.

Under it, the state authority shall lay down legal procedures regarding the circumstances, manner and extent to which the right to privacy, security in person, his property and residence may be encroached without prejudice.

The general purpose of the Bill is to promote the protection of personal information processed by public and private bodies and to introduce information protection principles so as to establish minimum requirements for the processing of personal information.

But the respected legal expert said the Bill is rather ambiguous because privacy and data protection were not the same although related and that it should be specific on either of the two; data protection or privacy.