Data is the new oil: reflecting on The Africa Big Tech Accountability Summit

Ever walked into a room and thought, “What a privilege it is to be surrounded by brilliant minds having conversations that genuinely matter?”

That was exactly how I felt as I recently had the honour of moderating the panel, “Who Shapes Africa’s Digital Policy? Big Tech, Policy Entrepreneurship and the Future of Africa’s Tech Regulation” at The Africa Big Tech Accountability Summit. .

Convened by AdLegal, the Summit brought together legal practitioners, regulators, policymakers, academics, civil society, competition authorities, and technology stakeholders to examine one of the defining questions of Africa’s digital economy: how should African jurisdictions regulate and hold Big Tech accountable?

Across two days, the discussions examined aspects of jurisdiction, data governance, corporate accountability, competition law, digital sovereignty and regional enforcement. A recurring theme was that Africa's regulatory response must evolve alongside the growing economic and political influence of Big Tech.

Looking at the issue of accountability, the question arose: when a global technology company operates in Africa without necessarily being physically present, whose laws apply and more importantly, how can those laws be enforced?

The opening keynote, “Whose Data, Whose Law? Jurisdiction, Extraterritoriality and Enforcement Against Offshore Big Tech Platforms in Africa,” by Olumide Babalola, PhD, immediately set the tone. A key issue that stood out was the ‘contractual trap’, particularly the role of terms of service as a form of private law.

For global platforms operating across multiple jurisdictions, the user relationship is often governed by contractual terms drafted far from where the users, data, and economic activity are located. This raises difficult questions about jurisdiction, applicable law, and perhaps most importantly, how African regulators can enforce their laws against companies with little or no physical presence on the continent.

The question of accountability is increasingly becoming a boardroom and governance issue, as businesses adopt AI and other emerging technologies. This was the focus of a discussion on Boardroom Accountability in the Age of AI: Corporate Governance Responsibilities for AI Adoption in African Businesses.

As businesses adopt AI systems, boards were encouraged to consider who is responsible for AI governance, what oversight mechanisms should exist, and what role professional advisers play. This of course becomes complicated as AI is incorporated into activities involving data, training, confidentiality, and decision making. The discussions raised practical legal questions that businesses will increasingly have to confront, ie when does an AI related breach of contract occur? Who is liable when an AI system causes harm? What happens where confidential information is inadvertently processed or disclosed? And, for lawyers, how do traditional duties of confidentiality apply when AI tools are involved?

A practical recommendation for boards was for companies that have adopted AI policies to have specific governance structures or committees responsible for ensuring those policies are actually implemented.

The question regarding who is responsible for governing AI at the organisational level naturally opened up a much broader question: who is responsible for shaping the rules that govern technology in the first place?

This was elaborated on during the panel I was honoured to moderate, “Who Shapes Africa’s Digital Policy? Big Tech, Policy Entrepreneurship and the Future of Africa’s Tech Regulation”. Our panel, which included Dr Meloney Musodi, Dr Mark Gaffley, Bonaventure Saturday, and Janice Celine Nantumbwe, examined the actors influencing the development of Africa’s digital regulatory landscape.

One striking observation was that policy is often reactionary. Technology develops, new risks emerge, and regulation follows. This prompted a broader question: does every new technological development require a new law, or should African jurisdictions focus on creating flexible regulatory frameworks capable of adapting to technological change?

The concept of digital colonialism also emerged alongside an important discussion about digital sovereignty. Digital sovereignty cannot simply mean having the power to pass legislation. It also requires meaningful capacity over the hard and soft infrastructure that supports a digital economy from energy and connectivity to cloud infrastructure, skills, institutions, research, and technical expertise.

Therefore, if Africa wants to shape its own digital policy agenda, it needs to build the foundational layers that make genuine policy autonomy possible. That means investing in skills and capacity, strengthening institutions, building strategic partnerships, and adopting more participatory approaches to policymaking. Having the capacity to set our own agenda does not, however, mean that Africa should operate in isolation.

At the same time, there was a caution against treating international regulatory frameworks as templates to be copied as is. There is an important distinction between benchmarking international best practice and simply ‘copy/pasting’ foreign regulation. The challenge for African policymakers is to draw lessons from jurisdictions such as the EU, US, and China, while adapting those lessons to African economic, institutional and social realities.

During the session on “Gatekeeping & Abuse of Dominance by Big Tech Platforms in African Markets”, the Summit explored the challenges posed by gatekeeping and abuse of dominance by major digital platforms and the growing need for competition authorities to coordinate their approaches.

The discussion around the COMESA Competition and Consumer Commission's investigation into Meta Platforms Ireland Limited was particularly significant because it demonstrated how African regulators are increasingly willing to confront the market power of global technology companies. But perhaps more importantly, the discussions demonstrated why national enforcement alone may not be sufficient.

Big Tech companies do not operate according to national borders. They operate across markets and across jurisdictions, while data, users, and commercial activity move across borders. This makes regional enforcement increasingly important.

The East African Community Competition Authority (EACA) provided an important perspective on this issue, particularly its role in addressing anti-competitive practices with a cross-border dimension. The principle is straightforward: where markets and conduct cross borders, enforcement mechanisms must be capable of doing the same. The COMESA Competition and Consumer Commission similarly highlighted how it is adapting its enforcement priorities to the realities of the digital economy, including through the COMESA Competition and Consumer Protection Regulations, 2025.

It requires stronger domestic enforcement, effective regional cooperation, and the domestication of continental frameworks. The discussions around the African Union's data protection framework and cross-border data disputes reinforced the importance of reducing regulatory fragmentation across African markets.

The Summit's competition discussions were sharpened further by the keynote on “Big Tech and Market Power in Africa: Why Competition Law Has Become Inevitable”.

“Data is the New Oil,” observed Mr Babatunde Irukera. This highlighted the self-reinforcing nature of data driven digital markets. The more users a platform attracts, the more data it collects, the more data it has, the more sophisticated its algorithms can become and better algorithms, in turn, attract more users. This creates a cycle that can further entrench the position of dominant platforms.

As a result, competition in the digital economy increasingly concerns access to data, digital ecosystems, interoperability, self preferencing, market access and consumer choice. The discussions at the Summit highlighted that African markets are recognising the need for new approaches to competition enforcement that account for these dynamics.

In conclusion, for Africa, the challenge ahead is therefore to build the legal, institutional, technical and regional capacity to shape the rules of the digital economy on its own terms. The conversations at The Africa Big Tech Accountability Summit made clear that accountability cannot rest solely on the ability to regulate global technology companies. It also requires strong institutions, effective enforcement, regional cooperation, informed policymaking and the capacity to develop solutions that reflect Africa’s own realities and priorities.

Zaina Nakyagaba is a lawyer and Junior Associate at leading Ugandan law firm KTA Advocates, where she advises at the intersection of innovation, regulation, and sustainability. Her work spans intellectual property, technology law, and climate-related legal frameworks, As well as moderating a panel at The Africa Big Tech Accountability Summit in Kampala, she recently completed a secondment at Jumia Uganda, a leading e-commerce platform in Africa.