Political parties will be prosecuted and penalised for accessing
personal mobile phone numbers and using them to canvas for votes from the
electorate under the new Protection of Personal Information Bill, Information,
Publicity and Broadcasting Services Secretary Mr Nick Mangwana has said.
Speaking during the belated Press Freedom Day
commemorations in Kwekwe recently, Mr Mangwana said there were complaints and
concern from the general public in the last elections when the electorate
received messages on their mobile phones from political parties canvassing without
them having provided them with their mobile phone numbers.
“The Protection of Personal Information Bill came from
Section 75 of the Constitution which is our right to privacy,” said Mr
Mangwana.
“You know every one of us go to the Registrar-General’s
Office and you give your information. You then start receiving text messages
from certain political parties and when formulating this Bill, people gave an
example of the previous elections when people started receiving text messages
from certain political parties asking for your vote and you start questioning
and asking yourself where they got your information, it makes people
uncomfortable because they want their information protected.”
Mr Mangwana said Government was internationalising data
protection and every personal data collected will be protected under the new
Bill.
“Every one of us is a data subject,” he said. “We are data subjects and being a data subject you need
some protection, for example when applying for a job you submit your CV which has
a lot of personal information.
“There is an expectation that information will be treated
with integrity and for the purpose that you submitted it and not for anything
else, if you find out that information has been abused, you have the right to
complain.”
Mr Mangwana said the Bill, which is now awaiting approval
from the Executive, was in line with international standards with regards to
the protection of personal information.
“What we are doing is basically standardising our practices
with international practices to the protection of people’s information,” he
said.
“For example, when people visit our country, when they get
to the airport their information is collected because they have become data
subjects. They do not want their information published anywhere else.
“So, the fact that we have internationalised our practices
is good for the country. It also puts the country in a better light. We provide
for the prohibition of processing of genetic biometric information and data
except where consent is given. Your information can only be used for the
purposes it has been collected.”
With regards to elections, Mr Mangwana said officials in
his ministry were leading the Sadc media observer mission in African countries
that were conducting general elections.
He said the ministry studied the Zimbabwe 2018 election
observer mission reports in a bid to improve the 2023 election in terms of
media coverage.
“Most of the directors in my ministry were out observing
elections — in South Africa, Malawi and Madagascar,” he said.
“The Zimbabweans were leading the media observer missions.
“We have also gone through the observers’ reports
pertaining to our last elections and we are learning lessons from those reports
and we hope and believe that the reports that will come up in the 2023
elections will be different.” Herald
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