This volume presents analyses of data protection systems and of 26 jurisdictions with data
protection legislation in Africa as well as additional selected countries without
comprehensive data protection laws. In addition it covers all sub-regional and regional data
privacy policies in Africa. Apart from analysing data protection law the book focuses on the
socio-economic contexts political settings and legal culture in which such laws developed and
operate. It bases its analyses on the African legal culture and comparative international data
privacy law. In Africa protection of personal data the central preoccupation of data privacy
laws is on the policy agenda. The recently adopted African Union Cyber Security and Data
Protection Convention 2014 which is the first and currently the only single treaty across the
globe to address data protection outside Europe serves as an illustration of such interest. In
addition there are data protection frameworks at sub-regional levels for West Africa East
Africa and Southern Africa. Similarly laws on protection of personal data are increasingly
being adopted at national plane. Yet despite these data privacy law reforms there is very
little literature about data privacy law in Africa and its recent developments. This book fills
that gap.
