An Assessment of Data Colonialism Awareness and Proposed Remedial actions: The case of Zambia

Abstract

The study aimed at assessing final digital data destiny awareness and management among stakeholders in Zambia. It sought to establish where and how data was stored, used and whether patrons were aware where their data finally ended up. Using a cross-sectional qualitative study design, the enquiry elicited thoughts, opinions and ideas from patrons from a cross section of Zambians drawn from HEIs, Government, ICT experts and users that voluntarily offered valuable data. The enquiry relied on two theories: Stakeholder and Surveillance Capitalism respectively. To arrive at the initial sample, stakeholder mapping was conducted followed by purposive sampling at each site. A final sample of responsive entities of 28 emerged that were then interviewed using open ended questions. The Research found that the majority of respondents were unaware where their generated digital data finally ended up nor did they know who else had access to it. The study also found that Zambia was perceived largely dependent on external entities for cloud data storage. The study concludes that Zambia is vulnerable. Its data is neither secure nor protected from third party privacy abuse like global tech giants. The enquiry recommends that Zambia heavily invests in locally owned digital infrastructure (e.g. servers, cloud storage and computing, data centres etc.) so that it could assert total control and locally manage this data for citizen identity protection and growth of contextual AI. The study also recommends that the government invests in on going sensitization, training and enacting relevant objectively equitably strong cyber laws to  protect citizens rather than digital for democracy inhibiting ends, narrative control or only enhancing foreign conglomerate interests.

Key words: Data; Digital Colonialism; Storage; Artificial Intelligence (AI); Higher Education Institution (HEI); Surveillance capitalism; Control

DOI: 10.7176/JEP/16-13-06

Publication date: December 30th 2025