KOFI ANOKYE OWUSU-DARKO (BLOG 1)

  INTRODUCTION   There is no doubt that  “Cyberspace creates new potentials for good and evil, for creative expression and criminal exploitation”  but the issue is, at what point can a government say cyberspace has become a threat to a country’s national security for the citizens to have zero right to privacy. This is to raise concerns with the National Signals Bureau (NSB) Bill that may have been passed by Parliament as an Act by the time I finish writing this article.   Clause 3 of the National Signals Bureau (NSB) Bill empowers the NSB to amongst others monitor, collect, analyse and disseminate information from cyberspace, electronic media to counter threats to security so as to prevent and deter the commission of a serious crime in the country (emphasis mine).   On the face of it, this may sound good but is a double edged sword that would be an infringement of our Constitutional right to be left alone (Right to Privacy- Article18(2) of the 1992 Constitution of Ghana)

INTRODUCTION Let us forget politics and the voters registration brouhaha. I have read the judgment of the case NDC v AG & EC by the supreme court and without emotions or logic, I agree with the legal reasoning given by the Supreme Court for not using the old voters card based on the legal arguments as given by the parties. Of course, the Court has no basis to go into the merits and demerits of the policy decision of the Electoral Commission (EC) in the exercise of their discretionary powers as long as it is in accordance with due process of the law and it is not arbitrary, capricious or biased as stated in Article 296 of the 1992 Constitution. It can be said that the Supreme Court has ruled and so be it; since litigation must come to an end, precedence has been set, so let us move on. In my opinion, however, the aspect on the birth certificate looks like a “forced landing” and may not be a universal truth or prone to practical legal difficulties going forward. It looks li

INTRODUCTION It looks like I have to do re-mix some of my earlier articles to give it a refocus since the issues of the EC and biometrics still remains relevant. My concern now is with the Electoral Commission (EC), aside our thumbprint wanting to capture our facials as part of their biometrics database for the purposes of voting. How relevant is this when we are not using e-voting technology but our traditional paper based system? Basically, data protection principles require that data collected must:                                 i.             be obtained and processed fairly,                               ii.             have been obtained for specified or explicit and legitimate purposes ,                             iii.             not be further processed in a manner incompatible with that purpose or those purposes,                             iv.             be retained subject to appropriate security measures against unauthorized access, and