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
Despite the rise of advanced and hi-tech communication platforms in recent years, SMS usage for business communication is at an all-time high and the platform is expected to remain entrenched in this space for many years to come.
By Marthinus Jansen van Vuuren, content marketing Expert at Infobip
2022 marked the 30-year anniversary of the advent of SMS, which was initially launched as a person-to-person (P2P) communication platform in the early 1990s. At first, SMS messaging was limited to single mobile networks, but was opened to operate between different networks in the late 1990s. At this stage, businesses were already recognising the opportunities to use SMS as a communication medium, leading to it being increasingly commercialised.
However, a huge transformation for SMS occurred with the launch of the first Apple iPhone in 2007, which was when instant messaging through data networks became a leading trend. This gave rise to application-to-person (A2P) SMS messaging, with businesses relying on a system to disseminate messages to customer groups or individuals.
Going from strength to strength
The A2P space is where SMS is hitting its sweet spot now, where it is gaining popularity and going from strength to strength. According to research by Mobilesquared, about 1,3-million additional businesses around the globe started using A2P SMS in 2020, while spend on A2P SMS is expected to grow 87% by 2025.
One of the main drivers behind the enduring popularity of the SMS platform and its growing uptake by businesses is that fact that it remains the most reliable communication platform to use when sending important and urgent messages to customers. This is especially pertinent at a time when identity verification is increasingly important, and one-time passwords or codes are typically sent to customers via SMS.
At the same time, personalisation is becoming increasingly important for customer engagements and while SMS messaging might appear very generic, the platform is expected to evolve drastically in the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution in terms of hyper-personalisation. In this sense, SMS messaging is likely to become more effectively targeted at the individual and will become an integral part of businesses’ omnichannel communication strategies.
Given its affordability, SMS will likely become the first foot in the door for businesses looking to engage with customers. Should there be an uptake from the customer following an initial SMS communication, it will most likely result in a communication flow into the other channels that form part of the business’ communications strategy.
RCS unlikely to challenge SMS
While the introduction of Rich Communication Services (RCS) has been touted as SMS version 2 that will eventually replace the traditional SMS platform, this is unlikely to happen in the foreseeable future. This is because RCS relies on data connections to operate effectively. On a continent like Africa, data is not always available or affordable, so SMS still remains the best route to follow for businesses that wish to reach large numbers of customers.
Additionally, businesses have largely recognised that SMS has an opening rate of close to 98%, making it the ideal platform to ensure that message will reach customers. Because it is an instant message, an SMS is ideally suited to communicate special offers and product messaging to customers.
Due to its power and affordability, SMS is likely to remain an international messaging standard for many more years. One of its main advantages is that SMS messaging works on any GSM device and in places such as Africa, where smart phone penetration is still relatively low, SMS still has a major role to play. This is in spite of all the modern hi-tech communication technologies that are coming to the fore.
Editor@tech-talk.co.za
by Tech Talk | Jan 25, 2023 | Articles
A new study from Juniper Research has found that 5G IoT (Internet of Things) connections will reach 116-million globally by 2026; rising from just 17-million in 2023.
It predicts that the healthcare sector and smart city services will drive this 1 100% growth over the next three years.
The comprehensive research examined 5G adoption across key sectors, such as the automotive industry, mobile broadband and smart homes, and forecasts that the healthcare and smart cities market will account for over 60% of 5G IoT devices by 2026. The ultra-low latency and high bandwidth of 5G IoT technology will be the key factors in driving this proliferation of new connections.
The report anticipates that 5G networks will experience significant growth in smart city services; owing to its cost-effectiveness in deployment and ability to carry significant amounts of data.
By 2026, there will be over 60-million 5G smart city connections globally, and the report urges city-planning authorities to leverage 5G connectivity as high-bandwidth gateways.
It found that the monitoring of transportation networks, including road and rail networks, will be key services that require 5G-enabled high-bandwidth cellular connectivity.
Investment from healthcare providers into 5G-based services will be driven by the need to modernise services, as the global Covid-19 pandemic exposed inefficiencies in healthcare provision. The report identified services including telemedicine, connected ambulances and emergency services, and real-time remote monitoring as key services that will be immediately improved by the integration of 5G services.
Research co-author Olivia Williams comments: “5G will enable more efficient and dynamic healthcare provision that was not feasible with 4G or Wi-Fi. However, healthcare providers must first implement 5G in areas which provide a strong return on investment; most notably connected emergency services.”
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 | Jan 24, 2023 | Articles
Africa is set to outperform the rest of the world in economic growth over the next two years, with real gross domestic product (GDP) averaging around 4% in 2023 and 2024.
This is higher than projected global averages of 2,7% and 3,2%, according to the African Development Bank Group report on Africa’s Macroeconomic Performance and Outlook, release yesterday.
With a comprehensive regional growth analysis, the report shows that all the continent’s five regions remain resilient with a steady outlook for the medium-term, despite facing significant headwinds due to global socio-economic shocks. It also identified potential risks and called for robust monetary and fiscal measures, backed by structural policies, to address them.
The Macroeconomic Performance and Outlook report will be released in the first and third quarters of each year. It complements the bank’s existing annual African Economic Outlook report, which focuses on key emerging policy themes relevant to the continent’s development.
The report shows that estimated average growth of real GDP in Africa slowed to 3,8% in 2022, from 4,8% in 2021 amid significant challenges following the Covid-19 shock and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Despite the economic slowdown, 53 of Africa’s 54 countries posted positive growth. All the five regions of the continent remain resilient with a steady outlook for the medium-term.
However, the report sends a cautionary note on the outlook following current global and regional risks. These risks including soaring food and energy prices, tightening global financial conditions, and the associated increase in domestic debt service costs.
Climate change – with its damaging impact on domestic food supply and the potential risk of policy reversal in countries holding elections in 2023 – poses equally challenging threats.
The report advocates bold policy actions at national, regional, and global scales to help African economies mitigate the compounding risks.
African Development Bank group president Dr Akinwumi Adesina says the release of the new report came at a time when African economies, faced with significant headwinds, are proving their resilience.
“With 54 countries at different stages of growth, different economic structures, and diverse resource endowments, the pass-through effects of global shocks always differ by region and by country. Slowing global demand, tighter financial conditions, and disrupted supply chains therefore had differentiated impacts on African economies,” he says.
“Despite the confluence of multiple shocks, growth across all five African regions was positive in 2022 – and the outlook for 2023-24 is projected to be stable.”
Africa’s pre-Covid-19 top five performing economies are projected to grow by more than 5,5% on average in 2023-2024 and to reclaim their position among the world’s 10 fastest-growing economies. These countries are Rwanda (7,9%), Côte d’Ivoire (7,1%), Benin (6,4%), Ethiopia (6%), and Tanzania (5,6%).
Other African countries are projected to grow by more than 5,5% in the 2023-24 period. They are the Democratic Republic of Congo (6,8%), The Gambia (6,4%), Mozambique (6,5%), Niger (9,6%), Senegal (9,4%), and Togo (6,3%).
At the launch, economist Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Centre for Sustainable Development at Columbia University commended the report which he said showed that African economies are growing and growing consistently.
Sachs, who is also United Nations secretary-general Antonio Guterres’ advocate for Sustainable Development Goals, says: “Africa can and will rise to growth of 7% or more per year consistently in the coming decades. What we’ll see, building on the resiliency we see in this report, is a real acceleration of Africa’s sustainable development so that Africa will be the fast-growing part of the world economy. Africa is the place to invest.”
Bold policy actions to help African economies mitigate the compounding risks
The report advocates robust measures to address the risk. These include a mix of monetary, fiscal, and structural policies including:
* Timely and aggressive monetary policy tightening in countries with acute inflation, and cautious policy tightening in countries where inflationary pressures are low. Co-ordination with fiscal policy will further strengthen the levers to ease inflationary pressures.
* Enhancing resilience by boosting intra-Africa trade, especially in manufacturing products to cushion economies from volatile commodity prices.
* Accelerating structural reforms to build tax administration capacity and investments in digitalization and e-governance to enhance transparency, reduce illicit financial flows, and scale up domestic resource mobilisation.
* Improving institutional governance and enacting policies that can leverage the private sector financing especially in climate-proof and pandemic-proof greenfield projects–and mobilising Africa’s resources for inclusive and sustainable development.
* Taking decisive action to reduce structural budget deficits and the accumulation of public debt in countries facing a high risk of debt distress or already in debt distress.
Overview of economic outlook across regions
Despite the confluence of multiple shocks, growth across all five African regions was positive in 2022 – and the outlook for 2023-24 is projected to be stable.
* Central Africa -Bolstered by favorable commodity prices, growth is estimated to have been the continent’s fastest at 4,7%, up from 3,6% in 2021.
* Southern Africa – Growth decelerated the most, to about 2,5% in 2022 from 4,3% in 2021. This slowdown reflects subdued growth in South Africa, as higher interest rates, weak domestic demand, and persistent power outages weighed on the economy.
* West Africa -Growth is estimated to have slowed to 3,6% in 2022 from 4,4% in 2021. This reflects decelerations in Côte d’Ivoire and Nigeria, the region’s two largest economies. Nigeria’s growth in 2023 – though hit by Covid-19, insecurity, and weak oil production despite higher international oil prices–could benefit from ongoing efforts to restore security in the restive oil-producing region.
* North Africa -Growth is estimated to have declined by 1,1 percentage points to 4,3% in 2022 from 5,4% in 2021 because of sharp contraction in Libya and the drought in Morocco. Growth is projected to stabilize at 4,3% in 2023, supported by an expected strong rebound in the two countries and sustained growth elsewhere in the region.
* East Africa -Growth is estimated to have moderated to 4,2% in 2022 from 5,1% in 2021. However, it is projected to recover to the pre-pandemic average above 5% in 2023 and 2024. While the production structure in East Africa is relatively diversified, countries in the region are largely net importers of commodities. They thus bear the brunt of high international prices in addition to recurrent climate shocks and insecurity, particularly in the Horn of Africa.
African Development Bank acting chief economist and vice-president Kevin Urama observes that Africa is still a favorable destination for investments in human capital, infrastructure, private sector development, and natural capital.
“Africa has a significant role to play in driving inclusive growth and sustainable development globally. There are many smart investment opportunities in key sectors: agriculture, energy markets, minerals, health infrastructure and pharmaceutical industries, light manufacturing, transport and logistics, digital economy and more. The continent remains a treasure trove for smart investors globally.”
Editor@tech-talk.co.za
