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2 February 2007

Venue: Kievitskroon Country Estate, Pretoria, Gauteng
Date: 5 to 7 February 2007
Time: 09h00

The Minister Communications, Dr Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri, will officially open the first African Conference on Information ethics taking place at Kievitskroon Country Estate in Pretoria, Gauteng from 5 to 7 February 2007.

The South African government, represented by the Departments of Communications and Arts and Culture together with the Presidential National Commission on Information Society and Development and other partners will be hosting the conference.

The conference, themed "Ethical challenges of the Information Age" will bring together African policy makers and academics and others from around the world. The conference seeks to deal with ethical challenges posed by the use of modern Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) such as computers, internet, radio and television in the African continent.

The use of ICTs have posed many challenges such as spamming, creation and distribution of computer viruses, virtual crimes such as identity theft and hacking.

The Geneva World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) of 2003 adopted a Declaration on the ethical challenges of information society. In addressing the ethical challenges of the information society on the African continent, the Tshwane conference will be guided by the Geneva Declaration.

The Declaration acknowledges ethics that foster justice, the dignity and worth of the human person. It further states that "all actors in the information society should take appropriate actions and preventive measures, as determined by law, against abuses of ICTs, such as illegal and other acts motivated by racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia, and related intolerance, hatred, violence, all forms of child abuse, including paedophilia and child pornography, and trafficking in, and exploitation of human beings."

The following plan of action was adopted to ensure adherence to the Declaration:

* The Information Society should be subject to universally held values and promote the common good and to prevent abusive uses of ICTs.
* Take steps to promote respect for peace and to uphold the fundamental values of freedom, equality, tolerance, shared responsibility, and respect for nature.
* All stakeholders should increase their awareness of the ethical dimension of their use of ICTs.
* All actors in the Information Society should promote the common good, protect privacy and personal data and take appropriate actions and preventive measures, as determined by law, against abuses of ICTs such as illegal and other acts motivated by racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia, and related intolerance, hatred, violence, all forms of child abuse, including paedophilia and child pornography, and trafficking in, and exploitation of human beings.
* Invite relevant stakeholders, especially the academia, to continue research on ethical dimensions of ICTs.

During the Information Ethics conference held in Germany, immediately after the World Summit on Information Society in 2005, mostly European experts discussed the ethical challenges of information society affecting their countries. Due to the absence of African experts, a decision was taken to host an African chapter of the conference.

More than 80 academics and policy makers from the African continent and the rest of the world are expected to attend the conference. African countries due to attend include Botswana, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Egypt, Ethiopia, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Mauritius, Namibia, Nigeria, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Kenya.

The following issues will form part of the discussions:

* development, poverty and ICTs including information poverty
* global security and human security
* information corruption and information injustice
* protection and promotion of indigenous knowledge
* freedom of access to information (intellectual property legislation, open access movement)
* internet exclusion.

Other institutions co-hosting the Conference are the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), the International Centre on Information Ethics, University of Pretoria (South Africa) and the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee (United States).

Enquiries:
Albi Modise
Cell: 083 490 2871
E-mail: Albi@doc.gov.za

Jim Patterson
Cell: 083 678 7015

Richard Mantu
Cell: 072 488 1520
Tel: (012) 427 8000
Fax: (012) 427 8026

Issued by: Department of Communications
2 February 2007