WPF’s contribution to ID4Africa Workshop on Privacy and Data Protection in ID Systems, Nairobi, Kenya 2023

The World Privacy Forum is pleased to provide a summary of Executive Director Pam Dixon’s work in Nairobi, Kenya at the ID4Africa AGM.

Dixon served as the Senior Special Rapporteur for two workshops at the 2023 ID4Africa Annual General Meeting in Nairobi, Kenya 23-25 May. In June, ID4Africa hosted a live cast of key participants from Workshop 4: Privacy and Data Protection in Identification Systems, which was chaired by Data Protection Authority Immaculate Kassait, Office of the Data Protection Commissioner of Kenya (ODPC).

The objective of this workshop was 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. The workshop was an extremely productive conversation, which included topics ranging from inclusion and cost, to the increasing role of Artificial Intelligence, and the need for African Data Protection Authorities to have an equal seat at the table for AI discussions.

The Workshop 4 LiveCast is available online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9VqI85i2i0

Workshop 4 discussion begins at 1:58:02

This year’s AGM was 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

Posted June 1, 2023 in Africa, AI, Complex Data Ecosystems, Data and Development, Data Ecosystems, Digital Privacy, Digitial Identity

New Report: Risky Analysis: Assessing and Improving AI Governance Tools

We are pleased to announce the publication of a new WPF report, “Risky Analysis: Assessing and Improving AI Governance Tools.” This report sets out a definition of AI governance tools, documents why and how these tools are critically important for trustworthy AI, and where these tools are around the world. The report also documents problems in some AI governance tools themselves, and suggests pathways to improve AI governance tools and create an evaluative environment to measure their effectiveness. AI systems should not be deployed without simultaneously evaluating the potential adverse impacts of such systems and mitigating their risks, and most of the world agrees about the need to take precautions against the threats posed. The specific tools and techniques that exist to evaluate and measure AI systems for their inclusiveness, fairness, explainability, privacy, safety and other trustworthiness issues — called in the report collectively AI governance tools – can improve such issues. While some AI governance tools provide reassurance to the public and to regulators, the tools too often lack meaningful oversight and quality assessments. Incomplete or ineffective AI governance tools can create a false sense of confidence, cause unintended problems, and generally undermine the promise of AI systems. The report contains rich background details, use cases, potential solutions to the problems discussed in the report, and a global index of AI Governance Tools.
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Report: From the Filing Cabinet to the Cloud: Updating the Privacy Act of 1974

This comprehensive report and proposed bill text is focused on the Privacy Act of 1974, an important and early Federal privacy law that applies to the government sector and some contractors. The Privacy Act was written for the 1970s information era -- an era that was characterized by the use of mainframe computers and filing cabinets. Today's digital information era looks much different than the '70s: smart phones are smarter than the old mainframes, and documents are now routinely digitized and stored and perhaps even analyzed in the cloud, among many other changes. The report focuses on why the Privacy Act needs an update that will bring it into this century, and how that could look and work. This work was written by Robert Gellman, and informed by a two-year multi-stakeholder process.

WPF’s contribution to ID4Africa Workshop on Privacy and Data Protection in ID Systems, Nairobi, Kenya 2023

Roundtable of African Data Protection Authorities: Status and response to privacy risks in identity systems- Proceedings of a Workshop

Table Ronde des Autorités Africaines de Protection des Données sur le thème de la via privée et des systèmes d’identité