Protection of Personal Data in Senegal

Abstract

Personal data has always been at risk of loss, damage, theft, fraud, unauthorized access and unauthorized dissemination all of which threaten personal privacy. However, with increased technological innovation and the use of ICTs, data becomes even more vulnerable as it involves automatic processing of data. Furthermore, technology allows storage of high volume of data, increases possibilities of interception, data matching, sharing, mining, and profiling. With introduction of eTransactions, personal data can allow scrupulous individual to steal personal identities or use traffic data or cookies as personal footprints to track, mine personal data (such as credit card details) and use it fraudulently for personal gain. In 2008 Senegal enacted several laws in regulating and securing individual activities online and punishing cyber-criminals. This chapter looks at one of the laws enacted in 2008, the Data Protection Law. The chapter canvases the regulatory framework established by this law and, through textual analysis of the law, determines the contextual sufficient of this law in protection of personal data and privacy. The analysis is made focusing also at the social-political context of Senegal. This is because, for any law to be successfully implemented, the social-political environment must favor its application.