Information Privacy Protection Practices in Africa: A Review through the Lens of Critical Social Theory

With the growth of Social Network Sites (SNS) and other online services, the collection and processing of personal information across boundaries has become an everyday reality including Africa. Africa is growing and technology offers a possibility to break the vicious circle of poverty. However, the limited IT infrastructure and weak economic realities have made African communities highly vulnerable for potential privacy violations. To mitigate such threats, various actors have implemented privacy protection mechanisms based on the Fair Information Practice (FIP) principles. However, Africa is a weak player in the Internet realm with limited decision power, dependent on external world, and limited skills to leverage technologies. Compounding the problem, Africa is lagging behind to start even proper discussions on legal protections and proper practices for information privacy. This work-in-progress reports on critical literature review conducted using critical social theory as lens and highlight potential privacy protection mechanisms and practices for Africa.