The African Declaration on Internet Rights and Freedoms Coalition (AfDec Coalition) in collaboration with the Centre for Human Rights (CHR), University of Pretoria: Expression, Information, and Digital Rights Unit hosted a virtual conference on the challenges and prospects of privacy and data protection in Africa. The collaboration between CHR and the AfDec Coalition sought to establish and strengthen a human rights-based approach to data protection on the African continent by engaging multiple stakeholder groups in understanding the data protection framework in Africa.

The four-day conference attracted interest and input from academics, students, policymakers, industry experts, and practitioners working in the areas of privacy, data protection, big data, information technology, and human rights law in Africa. The conference also developed a toolkit on the validation of data protection and privacy from a human rights-based approach and offered guidelines for policy-makers and duty-bearers on the enforcement of a human rights-based approach to data protection and privacy policy and regulation in Africa.

The objective of this conference was to develop an understanding of the legal and policy framework in Africa and to develop a network of experts on privacy and data collection.