News RAIN AFRICA WORKSHOP: RESPONSIBLE AI AND DATA PROTECTION REGULATORY LANDSCAPE ACROSS AFRICA
On the 30th November 2022, RAIN-Africa organized a workshop on the theme “Responsible AI and Data Protection” with three invited panellists, Teki Akuetteh, Arthur Gwagwa and Dr. Bev Townsend. They shared their insight on the regulatory landscape and measures across Africa in the context of AI.
Laud Ammah, co-founder of RAIN-Africa, opened the event by briefly introducing the RAIN Africa network and gave the floor to Dr. Caitlin Corrigan, Executive Director at the Institute for Ethics in Artificial Intelligence and co-founder of RAIN Africa, to moderate the event and the discussion.
Dr. Bev Townsend, Postdoctoral Researcher at the York Law School at the University of York, focused on the mapping of the AI regulatory landscape across 12 African nations, including Ghana, South Africa, Botswana, and Zimbabwe. She highlighted the findings of their study with respect to the relevant regulatory bodies, expertise, and responsible collection, processing, and use of data. She discussed the potential for putting regulation in place to foster good AI use and development in these regions. She highlighted for instance that,
“All 12 countries have adopted a digital/health/e-health strategies… However, what is lacking is any guidance in these areas addressing the impact of AI.” Bev Townsend
Arthur Gwagwa, Research Scholar at Utrecht University Ethics Institute, talked about the geopolitical asymmetries on AI and digital protection of personal data across the African continent and shared his concerns regarding the issue of “digital slavery”. He highlighted the fact that the “Industrial north” protects industrial data, a domain where Africa is lagging. This raises concerns about its implication. He emphasized that regulations and norms are mainly adopted outside the African continent and stressed the need to balance personal and non-personal data protection across Africa and avoid dominative approaches to AI Governance.
“We need to ask about the why, the purpose the data is collected. People should be consulted. This is what I call a non-dominative application of AI” Arthur Gwagwa
Teki Akuetteh, Founder and Executive Director of the Africa Digital Rights’ Hub, focused on respecting users’ rights during the development or creation process of AI tools, as it forms part of the fundamental rights of individuals, groups and organizations. She also underscored the need not only to provide good and carefully crafted principles to protect personal and non-personal data, but also to embed norms into the systems during the building of AI tools.
“The issue of transparency and making the data subjects aware of the use of their personal data is a big challenge.” Teki Akuetteh
During the discussion and the Q&A with the audience, many points from the initial presentation were elaborated upon. Some key takeaways from the interesting discussion include:
- “Stakeholder engagement is very important” Bev Townsend
- “We have very few experts in Africa that understand the law, AI and have the technical expertise” Teki Akuetteh
- “The data that is being collected today from Africa is going to give even more power to those who possess and use it” Arthur Gwagwa
We want to thank the experts and the audience for this great workshop.
