As Africa enters a decisive era for digital rights, more people have turned to digital platforms to exercise their rights to expression and association. However, governments have responded with increasing digital repression. DataFest Africa 2025, an initiative by Pollicy, has emerged as a vital space for reimagining how data should serve communities not institutions, corporations, or opaque systems of power. Now in its sixth edition, the festival has grown into the continent’s leading platform for exploring ethical, inclusive, and community-centred data futures. This year’s theme, “Reclaiming Our Data Futures,” went beyond conversations about innovation to interrogate deeper questions: Whose data? Whose benefit? Whose power?
Against this backdrop, the Africa Freedom of Information Centre (AFIC) convened a groundbreaking community dialogue on ACHPR Resolution 620, a landmark resolution of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights calling for stronger protections around privacy, data governance, and personal data processing.
The AFIC-led session placed communities at the centre of the development of the draft guidelines emerging from the resolution. It was a rare and powerful opportunity for grassroots voices to shape a continental standard on digital rights.
Why ACHPR Resolution 620 Matters Now More Than Ever
Across the continent, data has long been collected about African people, rarely with themand almost never for their direct benefit. From biometric systems to digital ID programs, from extraction of community data by large tech firms to opaque algorithmic decision-making, Africans are too often left vulnerable to surveillance, exploitation, and exclusion.
ACHPR Resolution 620 signals a shift: it calls for rights-based, people-centered approaches to data governance.
Yet for such guidelines to be legitimate and impactful, they must be informed by the very communities whose privacy and autonomy are at stake. AFIC’s dialogue session at DataFest Africa 2025 created this critical bridge.
AFIC’s Session: Bringing Community Perspectives Into Continental Policy
AFIC’s session was not a typical technical consultation. It was a community dialogue, intentionally designed to humanize policy and decentralize power.
Participants including community leaders, teachers, youth advocates, micro-entrepreneurs, local innovators, and civil society actors were invited to discuss:
How communities experience data collection in their daily lives
Harms arising from poor data governance—misuse, surveillance, exclusion, misinformation
Gaps in transparency, consent, and control over personal and community information
What rights-respecting data governance should look and feel like
Practical community-driven safeguards that should be embedded in the ACHPR guidelines.
Many participants spoke of the urgency to create mechanisms that keep powerful institutions accountable for how they collect and use data. Others highlighted the need for accessible language, community education, and safeguards against discrimination and algorithmic bias.
By the end of the session, AFIC had gathered a rich, grounded set of insights that will directly inform the draft guidelines under the ACHPR framework. More importantly, communities walked away feeling seen, heard, and recognized as co-authors of their digital futures.
The Bigger Picture: Why This Dialogue Matters at DataFest Africa
DataFest Africa is not just a festival—it is a continental movement reshaping how Africans think about data. Over the years, its 30,000+ participants have explored gender equality in data, the role of art in meaning-making, and community-centered innovation. This year’s focus on reclaiming data futures brought a sharper, more political lens to these conversations.
AFIC’s session aligned seamlessly with the festival’s intent:
1. Centering communities in data governance
The session challenged traditional models where governments or corporations design data systems without community input. By contributing directly to ACHPR guidelines, communities assumed their rightful place as stakeholders.
2. Bridging policy and lived experience
ACHPR guidelines often feel distant from the everyday realities of citizens. AFIC’s dialogue narrowed that gap, translating complex policy issues into practical experiences and community stories.
3. Protecting African digital identities
At a moment when extraction of African data is rampant, the session emphasized the need for continental frameworks that defend digital identities rather than commodify them.
4. Strengthening accountability and transparency
Communities called for stronger checks on institutional and corporate actors—demands that are essential for ethical governance and aligned with DataFest’s broader theme.
Impact: From Dialogue to Continental Action
What made AFIC’s session particularly impactful was the promise of implementation.
Insights from the session will feed directly into the ACHPR’s draft guidelines on privacy and data processing, ensuring that the resulting framework:
reflects African realities
protects vulnerable groups
promotes responsible and ethical data practices
strengthens community control and consent
advances a people-centered digital rights ecosystem
For many participants, this was the first time they had been invited to shape a continental policy instrument. For AFIC, it was an affirmation of their mission: ensuring that information and digital rights are grounded in transparency, accountability, and public participation.
A Turning Point for Digital Rights in Africa
This community dialogue demonstrated that community participation is not optional—it is foundational for any meaningful data governance system. It helped shift power back to the people whose data fuels modern digital ecosystems. And it offered a blueprint for how policymakers, civil society, and communities can collaboratively shape Africa’s digital future.
In many ways, this session did what DataFest Africa has aimed to do since 2019: turn data from a tool of institutional power into a catalyst for community empowerment.
