Africa’s Data Isn’t Safe

 

 

Digital Colonialism Isn’t a Metaphor: It’s Code, Contracts, and Cloud Storage





There was a time when "digital colonialism" felt like a buzzword. Too abstract. Too activist. Something you would hear in a Twitter thread or at a development conference panel no one remembered the next day. But it’s 2025, and we need to stop pretending this is theory. It’s not. It’s code. It’s contracts. It’s cloud storage. And it’s happening right now across the African continent.

Just to break it down.

The Cloud Is not Ours

When governments in Africa digitise their systems; tax records, voter data, ID databases, school systems, they often don’t host the infrastructure locally. Instead, they turn to the usual suspects: Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Huawei Cloud. And in doing so, they offload national data; often sensitive, often irreplaceable, into someone else’s machine.

Take Rwanda. Its impressive e-governance systems rely heavily on foreign-hosted platforms. South Africa has deep ties to Microsoft for its public cloud strategy. Ethiopia has used Chinese-built infrastructure to develop its biometric ID system, internet surveillance tools, and national data centres.

Ask yourself: who benefits from this arrangement in the long run? Who holds the keys when the servers go dark, or the politics shift?

The Hidden Costs of Convenience

Often, these cloud services come packaged as ‘development aid’ or public-private partnerships. There are handshakes and ribbon cuttings. Government officials smile in front of server racks. But what's really being signed?

What’s usually missing from the public eye are the non-negotiable licensing terms, the vendor lock-ins, the long-term contracts with zero local ownership. Sometimes, it is worse: surveillance tools, complete with AI facial recognition, get deployed under the guise of safety. Uganda saw this in its lead-up to recent elections, with Chinese firms helping set up facial recognition networks used to monitor dissent.

We tell ourselves these systems are “neutral.” But they are not. Every bit of imported tech comes with a worldview baked in assumptions about identity, governance, security. Convenience is seductive, but sovereignty is non-negotiable.

Code Is Power, and We are Outsourcing Ours

When you cannot see the code, you cannot control the rules. And increasingly, the rules that shape our digital lives, who gets verified, how content is moderated, what counts as legitimate identification, are being written in proprietary code we do not own and cannot change.

Elections are now run through software. Aid is distributed via block chain pilots. Digital classrooms depend on foreign Learning Management Systems. What happens when those tools break, or worse, are turned off?

This is not just a software problem. It is a sovereignty problem.

What Digital Sovereignty Could Actually Look Like

We do not need more imported innovation. We need infrastructure that is grounded in African values, built on open standards, and governed by people who live with the consequences of digital decisions.

Some glimmers of hope: the African Union’s digital transformation strategy. Smart Africa’s Data Policy Framework. Grassroots coding communities building local tools in languages and dialects people actually use. There is also a quiet movement pushing for open-source adoption in public institutions, but it needs support, funding, and political will.

True digital sovereignty does not only entail data staying on the continent. It comprises of agency, being able to build, break, rebuild, and adapt systems without needing permission from a server farm in Seattle or Shenzhen.

Final Thought: We are Not Building a Digital Future, We are Renting One

Here is the uncomfortable truth: if we don’t act now, Africa’s digital future will be rented, not owned. And rents always rise.

Africa needs to put money in the development of its digital infrastructure.

Digital colonialism isn’t coming. It’s already here. It’s just wearing a badge, signing a contract, and offering free cloud credits in exchange for the keys to the kingdom.

We still have time. But not much.



#Decolonisingtheinternet #internetgovernance #digitalrights #internetrights #unfragmenttheinternet #internetfragmentation #commuication #digitalpolitics #advocacy #internetglobalforum #Africanpolitics 

 


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