kenya
Following a seven-year, windy journey, on 8 November 2019, Kenya got a data protection law. The Data Protection Act, 2019 has various positive elements and can go a long way in addressing the live issues in protecting the privacy of data in Kenya. The law came at a time of widespread concern about privacy in the country, including the fragmented oversight over privacy and data protection; increased mass data collection programmes by the government; enhanced state surveillance capacity; rampan...
As part of our work connecting the unconnected, APC convened a community networks meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, between 30 April and 3 May 2019. Its purpose was to gather the twelve community networks that were selected for the community network learning grants and provide a platform for them to exchange their knowledge. The programme hopes to contribute to ongoing learning, acknowledging the diversity that exists and examining meaningful ways to support each other...
A brief observation of the analytical frameworks used by a great number of Kenyan social media users around the controversy surrounding the release of the Kenyan film Rafiki may make you more familiar with the rubrics of “artistic freedom” and “freedom of speech” than those of “queerness” and “precariousness” (here “queerness” accounts for those Kenyans who live outsid...
Access to connectivity is a critical driver for economic, political and social growth and development. Kenya’s first National Broadband Strategy (NBS) was envisioned for implementation between 2013 and 2017 with the objective of providing quality broadband for everyone. In the strategy, broadband was defined as: “Connectivity that is always-on and that delivers a minimum of 5 Mbps to indivi...
Kenya is currently in the process of adopting the 2018-2023 National Broadband Strategy, with the aim of providing equitable access to secure broadband for all citizens. The Communication Authority of Kenya invited stakeholders drawn from the public and private sectors, civil society and academia to provide their views, suggestions and recommendations on the Revised National Broadband Strategy ...
"This was a major breach of trust. We have a basic responsibility to protect people's data. If we can't do that, we don't deserve to have the opportunity to serve people." These were Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's words after public revelations that Cambridge Analytica had collected the personal information of tens of millions of Facebook users without their consent. However, almost a...
In the last two decades, Kenya mobile communications and internet connectivity have rapidly increased. With these developments, the country has also developed a data economy. The data economy is the wealth and resources created from collection and processing of data. It is the cornerstone of the fourth industrial revolution which uses digital technologies to carry out processes, be they physica...
High Tension pylons carrying optic fibreICT ministries and regulators from Southern Africa are meeting this week to consider ways to use infrastructure sharing to help achieve more universal access to broadband. The two-day event in Johannesburg beginning Wednesday 20 May is being convened by the regional regulatory body CRASA and organised by APC to bring together the Southern Africa Developm...
In the quest for universal access, this study shows that the cost of network deployment can be dramatically reduced if operators collaborate with each other in deploying fibre optic backbones or masts for wireless broadband. The report points out that even greater savings can be made if other utilities such as roads, rail lines, pipelines and power grids share their infrastructure with network ...
Electricity pylons can be used for fibre cables. Source: Deloitte Governments should promote sharing of networks and laying fibre cables with other infrastructure such as roads and power lines if they are to achieve universal access to broadband. Sharing infrastructure not only saves time but also provides massive savings when rolling out telecom networks to meet the growing needs of the public...
Association for Progressive Communications (APC) 2019
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