Editorial Policy

The tracker's value is that readers trust it as an independent record, including where a record is unflattering to the authority that made it. This page draws that line in public so it never has to be negotiated in private.

Independence

The African Data Protection Enforcement Tracker is edited by Law Lab Africa Research. Editorial control over every record (what is recorded, how it is summarised, whether it is published) rests with our editors and with no one else. This does not change when a record's source is the deciding authority itself.

Some authorities hold access accounts and submit decisions or notify us of enforcement outcomes directly. Authority-submitted records pass through the same editorial review as records we collect ourselves, and are published with their provenance disclosed. Access accounts are free, are not paid for in any form, and carry no editorial rights: an account lets an authority give us information, never instructions.

Corrections

We correct records on evidence. Anyone, whether an authority, a respondent or a reader, may point out an inaccuracy; if the source documents bear it out, we correct the record and note the correction on the record's page, dated. Corrections are noted, dated, and on the record page itself, on the public record.

We do not remove records on request. Tracker records document decisions and enforcement outcomes that the deciding authority made public; a record's subject or its maker finding it inconvenient is not a ground for deletion. Where a decision is overturned on appeal, the record is updated to say so. An overturned decision is part of the record, not an error in it.

The narrow exceptions: we remove or amend a record where a court of competent jurisdiction orders it, where the record turns out to document something the authority never actually published (our error), or where a record contains personal data we should not have carried under our own methodology (for example, a complainant's name, which our methodology already excludes). Every removal under these exceptions is itself logged.

Where records come from

Every record links its source document. Records carry their source class: collected from the authority's published decisions, gazettes or journaux officiels; collected from court records; or submitted by the authority through its access account. Authority-submitted records are marked as such. Direct submission is a stronger source, and readers deserve to know it.

Corrections requested by authorities go through the same evidence test as anyone else's. An authority telling us we misread its decision will usually be right, and the public correction note will say the authority corrected us. That is the system working, not a favour.

What participation means (and does not mean)

Dossiers of authorities that supply and verify data through their access accounts say so ("Data supplied and verified with the authority"). The badge is a statement of fact about provenance, not an endorsement in either direction: it does not mean the authority endorses Law Lab Africa's analysis, and it does not mean we soften ours. Participating authorities' records are as open to correction requests, and as closed to removal requests, as everyone else's.

To report an inaccuracy, email info@lawlab.africa with the record ID and the source that contradicts us. The rest of the method, and the inclusion criteria, are on the methodology page. Last updated 22 July 2026.