by Tech Talk | Feb 24, 2023 | Articles
On the questions of who pays for data or the cost to communicate, Coega’s Chief Knowledge and Digital Officer, Monde Mawasha, writes that one can say, with no danger of irony, that the South African economy pays and will continue to pay dearly.
…I once listened to an Academic Clinician relate the access model regarding access to peer reviewed and sometimes un-peer-reviewed information. The story runs, as all tragedies do, with an Oligarchy or Monopoly being a major player. Any academic must perform academic duties, one of which is to publish articles. The researcher will gather all required resources of money, time, effort and especially, collaborators (who are mostly postgraduate students, needing to earn their academic stripes through publication or articles).
Research work is completed, and conclusions are drawn. The academic paper is then peer reviewed with a view to scientific publication in one of the two or three clinical publication platforms. The reviewers are usually experts in their fields who offer their time to critique papers for publication. The paper is then published. Anyone interested in the publication will pay the Oligarch for access to the publication through various payment methods.
Who pays?
…Or maybe, let us start with: Who derives income? It is not the researcher who needs to earn their academic stripes. It is not the collaborators or Master’s and PhD students, who gave their knowledge to be able to join academia. It is the publisher!
Who paid?
The PhD student, the researcher, and the consumer of the material!
If I, for example, spend time researching and writing this article, I will pay for the data bundle I require to conduct my research. The consumer will pay for the data bundle to access the article. The ‘telcos’ will derive income from this work because they control access as well as telecommunication infrastructure. Big tech companies will derive revenue from the use of the data using algorithms that drive your (consumer) spending behaviour, thus utilising the content. The other income accumulators are the advertisers that work with big telcos.
Public Good:
Content generated by experts who give advice, content providers who produce educational material, and linkages to partnerships and value-chains are a public good.
If we use public road infrastructure, as an example, profit generating entities use these mechanisms of Public / Common Good and derive an income from it. The environmental impact and tax debates are designed precisely because of this cost-burden asymmetry (between the taxpayer who pays for the road infrastructure on one side and the logistics companies and intermediaries that extract profit from the infrastructure, on the other side).
There is enough high-quality online content produced by competent producers, which is for the good of the public, but this is instead paid for by the public and the profits extracted by private entities.
Each school, community centre, library, health facility, low-cost housing complex, must ensure that access to online content at the basic level is provided. It is a public good. The health of the economy depends on the government providing education, crime fighting (in the affected community) and access to health information as a fundamental public good. As and when the government acquits itself of providing this good, the better the prospects will be for the economy. If it is accepted that the government has now used taxpayer money to provide this public service, there comes the matter of the consumption side of the market. Things start to degenerate quickly. For example, learners are unable to access the public good because they need to buy data bundles to access the content.
South Africa seems too content with a telecommunications service that shows clear signs of market failure. Data provision intermediaries abuse this market failure to generate profit, at the expense of the long-term sustainability of the economy.
This sounds very much like the climate change scenario where the market failure, as is clear to all and sundry, is abused for profit. What could be a virtuous cycle becomes a whirlpool that drives the economy into a downward spiral; into a snake pit of inequality when it comes to access to information, constrained access to learning material, constraints on health information and basic information to run their lives. The market is being abused through commission and omission to the detriment of the economy.
Some detractors point to criminality and vandalism as the reason that this cost needs to be levied. A cursory glance at development economics examples around the world, explicitly show communities protecting and making good use of such public good.
Therefore, when it comes to data in South Africa, who pays? The inexorable conclusion that the same people who eventually pay for climate change, the poor, the unempowered and most tragic of all, the future generations carry the highest burden of cost for data. Cost of data is regressive tax on the poor and the -to-be-born!
Editor@tech-talk.co.za
by Tech Talk | Feb 1, 2023 | Articles
Data Privacy Day, also known as Data Protection Day, takes place annually on 28 January to raise awareness about the importance of data privacy and to promote data protection best practices.
By Nadine Mather, partner at Bowmans South Africa
This international event is dedicated to reminding individuals and organisations of the importance of data protection and to take steps to safeguard their personal information.
In South Africa, this year’s Data Privacy Day marks just over one and a half years since the provisions of the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) became enforceable. Whilst the Information Regulator has used this period to educate institutions on POPIA and to operationalise the legislative framework in place, the Information Regulator has indicated that it will not hesitate to show its teeth going forward and it is foreseeable that we may witness the first fine or penalty imposed under POPIA this year.
The rise of technology and the growth in data protection regulations globally reflect a significant movement towards better data protection practices. Data privacy should thus be seen as an everyday event and organisations processing personal information should constantly be monitoring and improving their data processing strategies. In celebration of Data Privacy Day, here are a few tips to improve your data privacy measures.
* Assess your data processing activities – Organisations must be able to justify why they collect, hold and process personal information. It is thus important to understand what information is collected, for what purpose it is collected, and whether it is necessary to retain the information. Discard the personal information which you no longer need or are required to retain (in a responsible way). The principle of minimality is key and organisations should not be processing personal information which is not necessary to achieve their aims and functions.
* Implement strong security measures – One of the most important steps organisations should take to secure the integrity of personal information is to implement strong security measures to protect the information from unauthorised use, access or disclosure. The security measures may include implementing firewalls, encryption technologies, virus programs and strong password controls.
* Be transparent – Organisations should take steps to adopt privacy procedures that clearly outline how personal information is collected, used and shared. This includes taking steps to inform data subjects of how their personal information is used and processed. In doing so, data subjects should be informed of their rights to their personal information, including the right to opt-out of certain data processing activities where applicable.
* Train, train and train again – According to a study conducted by IBM, 95% of cyber security breaches result from human error. Businesses should thus regularly train all stakeholders and employees on data privacy and security best practices to ensure they understand how to handle personal information responsibly and to protect the information from unauthorised access or disclosure.
* Monitor and evolve – Threats to personal information (both external and internal), data protection legislation and businesses themselves are constantly evolving. Ongoing monitoring of your data processing activities and security protocols will assist with ensuring that your measures are still fit for purpose and comply with applicable data protection laws.
Data Privacy Day is a good reminder for individuals and businesses to wake up to the importance of safeguarding personal information and respecting privacy. By taking simple but effective steps, businesses can adequately protect personal information, enhance their data protection practices, and mitigate against data breaches.
Editor@tech-talk.co.za
by Tech Talk | Jan 25, 2023 | Articles
As data moves out of the datacentre and flows freely between devices everywhere, organisations are rapidly losing visibility and control of their ecosystems. So says Chris Pretorius, Business Unit Manager at Datacentrix, a hybrid IT systems integrator and managed services provider, who explains that because of this, traditional monitoring solutions are no longer applicable to the modern, internet-centric business.
“Many companies are operating at some level within the cloud, meaning that their data is now more dispersed than ever before. As a result, they just don’t have visibility of what is happening inside the cloud. This is a real concern, as cybercriminals today are using increasingly sophisticated attack strategies to bypass defences, with more than six million distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks seen worldwide in the first half of last year alone.
“At the same time, a dependable, seamless user experience – from wherever they may be accessing the network – has also become critical.”
Datacentrix partner Cisco sums up today’s technology challenge as follows: “…IT environments have grown overwhelmingly complex, and user expectations are higher than ever. The connections that businesses rely on have multiplied in number and diversity. This has resulted in a network and overall IT experience that is more fragmented, less secure and increasingly difficult to scale.
“Today’s business environment is predictably unpredictable,” Cisco continues. “Organisations depend on digital experiences to keep their workforces productive and ensure they are exceeding expectations for customers and partners. To build business agility and resiliency, IT teams require unified solutions that bridge an organisation’s technologies, locations, teams and devices.”
Managing the borderless network
Says Pretorius: “Our borderless networks have become incredibly complex, and IT teams are struggling to manage hybrid work environments, growing cybersecurity threats and other disruptions, while being expected to also provide an excellent employee and customer experience.
“They need help to simplify operations and the answer is a smarter, unified, self-healing network.
“The network of the future will be able to learn, plan and predict, using a collection of observability, visibility and detection technologies that gathers data from many sources. It then learns patterns, recognises trends, and uses this data to predict user experience and application issues, forecast and prevent network outages, and protect against attacks before they happen.”
Predictive network technology also puts forward potential solutions to the issue, which can then be implemented automatically or manually, at the discretion of the IT team.
“By enabling IT teams to shift focus away from networking challenges towards preventing those issues that affect the business, it is possible to improve operational efficiencies, deliver improved digital experiences, and maximise the cloud environment,” Pretorius concludes.
Datacentrix is a Tier 1 Gold Certified Cisco Partner with reseller specialisations in advanced data centre architecture; security architecture; collaboration architecture; and enterprise networks architecture. The company is authorised to sell enterprise agreements in data centre, cloud, security and collaboration.
Editor@tech-talk.co.za
by Tech Talk | Oct 14, 2022 | Articles
It has been said that data is the new oil. That’s certainly true of the agricultural environment where farmers are increasingly using the power of data and data analytics to make better decisions and improve their operations.
Accurate and accessible records have long been a key element of successful farm management. For livestock farmers, however, creating these records has traditionally been a laborious and time-consuming task, often accomplished with old fashioned pen and notebook in a kraal environment with the data then needing to be painstakingly uploaded.
The introduction of electronic weighing and data collection systems has gone a long way to saving time, creating efficiencies and ensuring more reliable data. However, these primarily imported solutions are often pricey, costing anything between R30 000 and R80 000.
In response Tal-Tec, the local providers of quality livestock equipment, now offer an innovative eWeigh system, a South African manufactured device which combines affordability with functionality. The digitally based eWeigh is Bluetooth enabled and includes no physical display on the scale. Instead, by waving a stick reader over each animal’s electronic tag, eWeigh uploads its weight onto the iLivestock application on a smartphone. The device indicates when a weight has been successfully recorded by displaying green lights.
iLivestock is an app specifically designed for the livestock industry to record and edit animal information in the field. Using a smart device, iLivestock allows farmers to capture animal information, either by manually inputting the data or via an external source such as an EID (electronic identification) stick reader. iLivestock is fully integrated with eWeigh device, allowing farmers to quickly record weight data against other data saved on the app. One of the big benefits of eWeigh is that wifi is not a requirement to effectively capture data. Instead, using Bluetooth on the smartphone, eWeigh uploads animal data to iLivestock which is then uploaded to the cloud once in range of wifi.
“I’ve been using iLIvestock and eWeigh for the past three years and I can’t recommend it enough,” enthuses Benchmark Boerdery’s Hennie van Niekerk, a Boerbok stud farmer based in Polokwane, Limpopo.
“I weigh my livestock on a weekly basis and the combination of eWeigh and iLivestock has made my life a lot easier as well as giving new meaning to trackability and traceability. As it’s a digital platform, all the information I need is accessible whenever I need it, wherever I am. I’m able to automatically record the latest information and even set up reminders for things like vaccinations. There’s even a filters section which can sort animals based on defined characteristics. If a lamb is not picking up weight as quickly as others I can easily identify it and try to establish the root cause of the problem. The bottom line is that between them, iLivestock and eWeigh are giving me an edge. It’s a fantastic product.”
Derik Peach, a farmer from Middleburg, Mpumalanga, agrees that eWeigh is highly efficient and enables more accurate record keeping. He estimates that he has cut his record keeping time by more than 50% since starting to use eWeigh. “eWeigh is easy to use, very accurate and generates an immediate report. I highly recommend it,” he says.
iLivestock and eWeigh have revolutionised traceability in the local livestock industry, points out CEO of Tal-Tec Greg Talbot. “Farmers now have the ability to keep very detailed records without too much effort about every individual animal from its heritage (dam and sire), to its birth date, weight at different ages, vaccinations and medicines, to feed, amongst others.”
Editor@tech-talk.co.za
