PRIVACY, PERSONAL DATA IN JEOPARDY ,SAYS DON

Experts believe so much personal data, including sensitive information, remains in the hands of private companies, especially  with the liberalization 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 )NM-AIST)based in Arusha.

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

The lecturer in intellectual property, who was commenting on the proposed legislation on personal data and privacy 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 in  a recent interview.

Dr. Laltaika, who is an expert in intellectual property and privacy law, took 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 the United Republic of Tanzania 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.


Dr. Laltaika commended the government for the initiative to bring in the Bill but argued that it is flawed from the beginning because the law is almost 90 per cent data protection and only 10 per cent privacy. "A better option would have been to enact two pieces of legislation one at a time.

"An even better option would be to go ahead and dedicate the present Bill Personal Data Protection roll up the leaves and develop another Bill spefically for Privacy", he pointed out.

Sources said the Bill may be tabled in the next session of the National Assembly. At the Cabinet level, though, information had it that the ministers, stakeholders and other officials wanted people to be more sensitized first because it is tabled.

"Many Tanzanians (apparently) are not sure of their rights in privacy and consequential breach of some aspects of the right to privacy", he stated, noting that public sensitization should start with general introduction to the right to privacy, including types of privacy and origin of the law of privacy.

He described South Africa as a pioneer in data protection legislation in Africa after it enacted the Protection of Personal Information Act (PPI Act) in November 2013. "The PPI Act in South Africa is a comprehensive law".

He pleaded to the relevant authorities to halt tabling of the Bill until all legal inputs are collected from the lawyers and other stakeholders, specifically on how to make the proposed legislation amenable to the local situation.

"While hoping that appropriate legal and institutional safeguards for protection of personal data and privacy will be established, I am calling upon relevant government functionaries and civil society to educate the public on the importance and need for protection of personal data", he said.

He warned that without legal and institutional mechanisms are put in place, maintained and strengthened to protect privacy and personal data of Tanzanians there was a danger of them falling prey to unauthorized use,misuse and abuse.