{"id":277967,"date":"2026-06-21T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/21\/digital-colonialism-us-demands-to-access-africans-data-raise-privacy-sovereignty-concerns\/"},"modified":"2026-06-21T17:30:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T21:30:09","slug":"digital-colonialism-us-demands-to-access-africans-data-raise-privacy-sovereignty-concerns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/21\/digital-colonialism-us-demands-to-access-africans-data-raise-privacy-sovereignty-concerns\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Digital colonialism\u2019: US demands to access Africans\u2019 data raise privacy, sovereignty concerns"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018Digital colonialism\u2019: US demands to access Africans\u2019 data raise privacy, sovereignty concerns<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.dailykos.com\/stories\/2026\/6\/21\/800057462\/world\/digital-colonialism-us-demands-to-access-africans-data-raise-privacy-sovereignty-concerns\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-06-21 17:00:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.dailykos.com<\/a><\/p>\n

By\u00a0Sharon Lerner\u00a0and\u00a0Anna Maria Barry-Jester for ProPublica<\/p>\n

Frank Ssekamwa says the United States presented his country with an impossible choice. If it accepted the terms of a new health agreement, Uganda would have to give the U.S. access to the data of millions of his fellow citizens \u2014 a decision he worries would make their personal information more vulnerable to breaches and possible exploitation.<\/p>\n

But if it refused, the East African nation would likely lose out on more than a billion dollars to address HIV, malaria, tuberculosis and other illnesses, even as its people face ongoing threats from Ebola and other deadly infectious diseases.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So, on Dec. 10, it agreed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you take the deal, you\u2019re going to be exploited. If you don\u2019t take it, you\u2019re going to die,\u201d said Ssekamwa, an attorney and digital rights expert in Uganda. \u201cIt\u2019s the essence of digital colonialism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Across Africa, countries have faced similar dilemmas as the U.S. has held a series of closed-door negotiations in which lifesaving aid has been conditioned on access to citizens\u2019 health data. The negotiations come in the wake of the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development, which \u2014 in contrast with the new contracts \u2014 provided billions of dollars in aid with few strings attached. Officials in Zambia, Zimbabwe and Ghana have been so outraged by the demands that they rejected the initial deals.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Related | Musk and Trump killed USAID\u2014and they\u2019ve got blood on their hands<\/strong><\/p>\n

The demand to access health data is central to the Trump administration\u2019s new America First Global Health Strategy, an openly transactional approach that seeks to leverage the desperate need for medical treatments abroad. Aid will now be given \u201cin a way that directly benefits the American people and directly promotes our national interest,\u201d Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated in September.<\/p>\n

The State Department declined to publicly release…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018Digital colonialism\u2019: US demands to access Africans\u2019 data raise privacy, sovereignty concerns https:\/\/www.dailykos.com\/stories\/2026\/6\/21\/800057462\/world\/digital-colonialism-us-demands-to-access-africans-data-raise-privacy-sovereignty-concerns\/ Publish Date:…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":277969,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.dailykos.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/06\/AP26133773782323.jpg?w=1500","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-277967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-privacy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277967"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277967"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277967\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":277971,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277967\/revisions\/277971"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/277969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}