WPF Executive Director to serve as Senior Rapporteur for ID4Africa workshops regarding policy and regulatory challenges for digital identity and privacy and data protection in ID systems

The World Privacy Forum is pleased to announce Executive Director Pam Dixon has been invited to serve as the Senior Special Rapporteur for two workshops at the 2023 ID4Africa Annual General Meeting which will take place in Nairobi, Kenya 23-25 May. 

These workshops include the following: 

 Workshop 2: Policy and Regulatory Challenges for Digital Identity: The African Perspective 

Chaired by: UNHCR & The African Identity Policy Cohort

This workshop reviews the experiences of African countries related to the reform of laws, policies and regulations that impact identity, civil registration, and digital transformation. Over the last decade, many texts of law were developed aiming to render identity systems more inclusive, non-discriminatory, protective of privacy and individual rights, and more adapted to the rapidly evolving digital context.

Workshop 4: Privacy and Data Protection in Identification Systems 

Chaired by: Office of the Data Protection Commissioner of Kenya (ODPC)

African Data Protection Authorities (DPAs) play a key role in the development and regulation of digital transformation programs and identity systems. This is as expected given the data-rich nature of these initiatives and their potential to be invasive to privacy of those they seek to benefit. The objective of this workshop is to give a voice to the DPAs around Africa and to enable them to shape the development agenda by articulating their concerns and recommendations on acceptable risk mitigation and data protection practices, and key regulatory considerations to be factored into such initiatives.

“ID4Africa is the single most important gathering of identity experts and authorities in the world,” said Dixon. “It is a privilege to be requested as a senior rapporteur. I am also very pleased to be joined by Sumedha Deshmukh, a respected PhD student and researcher at Cambridge University. We will be very focused on conveying a precise and accurate representation of these critically important conversations.” 

This year’s AGM will be the second time Dixon has served as Rapporteur for ID4Africa. In 2019, Dixon served as the Rapporteur for the first meeting of the Roundtable of African Data Protection Authorities regarding Identity Ecosystems in Africa. The 2019 rapporteur’s report is available in English and French. 

2019 Roundtable of African Data Protection Authorities regarding Identity Systems and Privacy, ID4Africa, Johannesburg. South Africa