The fight to control Africa’s digital revolution

All over Africa, the double-edged nature of digital technology is becoming increasingly apparent. On the face of it, an internet shutdown in Africa seems less noteworthy than one in Europe, China or North America, where the use of online technology is more widespread. Internet penetration in Africa — while rising more rapidly than elsewhere — is still just 37 percent, against 61 percent in the rest of the world. Yet in some ways, Africans are more dependent on internet and smartphone technologies than people elsewhere. Hundreds of millions of Africans use cellular services to transfer money to their family or to pay for goods and services. In the absence of a universal banking system, if the mobile network goes down, the impact can be devastating. Similarly, in countries with heavily controlled print media, the internet becomes the only source of reliable information — as well as one of rumour and deception. More important even than the fragility of physical infrastructure is institutional and regulatory frailty. Consumers in advanced economies are only now waking up to the dangers posed by technology to their privacy and freedom. In Africa, companies are still at the stage of what Kenyan writer Nanjala Nyabola calls “a mass data sweep” in which information about an expanding consumer class is being busily devoured. Governments in Africa have a massive opportunity to use the digital revolution to improve the lives of their citizens. Too many are using it against them.