Emmanuel Kwasi Gadasu writes:
As both a Christian and a Data Protection Officer with understanding of Ghana’s Protection Act and frameworks like the GDPR
and CCPA, I firmly believe that the principle of privacy is not only ethical and legal—it is spiritual. From the Garden of Eden to the Proverbs of Solomon, the Bible speaks to the importance of personal boundaries, discretion, and the respectful handling of information. When God created man and woman, He gave them not just life and purpose, but also freedom, space, and intimacy—all core aspects of what we call privacy today.
Read more of his biblical references to privacy at Modern Ghana. He goes on to state, “The Data Protection Act of Ghana and other modern
frameworks such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) champion the same values.”
Would emphasizing the biblical roots of privacy help the population take data security and data protection more seriously? A new report (pdf) out by Interpol this week reports:
In the past year, suspected scam notifications rose by up to 3,000 per cent in some African countries, according to data from Kaspersky – one of several private sector partners that works with INTERPOL’s cybercrime directorate.
Ransomware detections in Africa also rose in 2024, with South Africa and Egypt suffering the highest number, at 17,849 and 12,281 detections respectively according to data from Trend Micro, followed by other highly digitized economies such as Nigeria (3,459) and Kenya (3,030).
Incidents included attacks on critical infrastructure, such as a breach at Kenya’s Urban Roads Authority (KURA), and on government databases, such as hacks of Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
BEC-related incidents also rose significantly, with 11 African nations accounting for the majority of BEC activity originating on the continent. In West Africa, BEC fraud has driven highly organized, multi-million-dollar criminal enterprises, such as transnational syndicate Black Axe.
Sixty per cent of African member countries reported an increase in reports of digital sextortion, where threat actors use sexually explicit images to blackmail their targets. The images can be authentic – shared voluntarily or obtained through coercion or deception – or they can be generated by artificial intelligence.