What is Decentralised Finance? Decentralised Finance (DeFi for short) is a financial system built on public blockchains such as BitCoin and Ethereum. Blockchains refer to a list of data records that work as a decentralised digital lender. The data in a specific blockchain is organised into blocks, which is chronologically arranged and secured by cryptography. The oldest and safest blockchain [...]
On the 16th of July 2020, the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) invalidated the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield. he EU–US Privacy Shield was a framework regulating exchanges of personal data for commercial purposes between the the European Economic Area ("EEA") and the United States. The CJEU further decided that the standard contractual clauses (“SCC”) adopted by the European Union Commission [...]
Recently, the parliamentary committee on security and justice, adopted the Cybercrimes Bill (“the Bill”) along with several other pieces of legislation. The Bill establishes and defines procedures in which cyber-related crimes can be investigated and creates various new offences for crimes committed on the internet. One of the most important aspects the Bill addresses is that it criminalises the distribution [...]
Technology continues to challenge the legal system and sometimes laws battle to keep up with the speed at which technology is changing, and the various new technologies that are launched. The Tech Legal Matters podcast explores cybersecurity, privacy, and data protection and other similar topics at the intersection of technology and the law. Subscribe to this podcast, published by iAfrikan [...]
The speed of digital innovation and the emergence of technologies such as facial recognition and fingerprint authentication has brought with it privacy and cybersecurity concerns. In the recent months, after the killing of George Floyd, law enforcement authorities in the United States deployed powerful surveillance tools to monitor and track the protests against systemic racism and police brutality. Drones were [...]
The fourth industrial revolution (“4IR”) is causing significant changes to the way we live, interact and do business. This is the future of technology, where objects, machines and various other devices connect with each other in a secure, networked environment. 4IR is being driven by intelligent machines that can perform complex tasks automatically by communicating with other machines, with little [...]
Here's a link to a very useful guide on South Africa's Protection of Personal Information Act, prepared by Delphine Daversin and Melody Musoni as part of the International Comparative Legal Guide (ICLG) - Data protection law and Regulations 2020. This guide, published by Global Legal Guide (GLG) is available on line for 39 jurisdictions. It also includes expert analysis chapters [...]
South Africa’s President, Cyril Ramaphosa, announced yesterday that the Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013 will be fully effective from 1 July 2020.[1] This is great news for SA because it enhances its plans to grow its digital economy. For example, if SA is able to show that its data privacy law is adequate for the European Union’s purposes, more [...]
The spread of COVID-19 has negatively influenced the output of work at a global level. It has affected nearly every sector and has ultimately halted cross border trade. As the coronavirus unfolds across countries, many firms have adopted a policy which allows their employees to work remotely. However, considering the number of law firms that are wholly reliant on paper [...]
Within the past month, we have gone from mainly needing to authenticate and verify documents through a physical (wet-ink) signature to an era where the need to authenticate and verify documents online is inevitable. We have effectively moved from paper-based certification and verification to electronic authentication This effectively, all in a bid to safeguard against the COVID – 19 pandemic, [...]
