Dear listers, Today the Taskforce on Data Protection/Ministry of ICT held a public participation forum where stakeholders made submissions on the proposed policy and bill. Some golden threads in the discussions: independence of data protection authority ; funding and how the policy will be implemented; cross border transfers/localisation of data; access to personal data by state agencies such as KRA; how public agencies/government controllers and processors will be treated by the law; and how other regulators eg financial services will interact with the framework. On process, policy makers stated that the draft Bill will be published by the National Assembly and merged with the Senate one. Most of these issues have been discussed here in one way or another. One interesting side discussion apart from the above was on how the law, once enacted, could be submitted to Europe for assessment for adequacy status. Under GDPR, adequacy status may be granted by the European Commission to non-EEA countries who provide a level of personal data protection that is "essentially equivalent" to that provided in European law. Morocco is one African country that has been pursuing adequacy status. The public participation forum continues tomorrow from 9am -1pm at the Louis Leakey Auditorium , National Museums of Kenya. -- Grace Mutung'u Skype: gracebomu @Bomu PGP ID : 0x33A3450F