In recent years, East African countries have made significant strides in efforts towards data protection. However, Reliance Insurance head of IT, Imani Mwanri, challenges countries within the region to also develop cross-border data regulations with growing need for data exchange between countries.
In April 2026, Tanzania’s Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA) became fully enforceable, adding the country to the growing list of African nations with operating data regulations. While this marks a step in the right direction, Imani Mwanri, head of IT at Reliance Insurance, believes far more must be done to govern international data flows in an era of rapid information exchange.
Speaking during the CITO CIO of the Future Summit held in Dar es Salaam, Imani explained that data movement has evolved from interpersonal interactions to institution-wide operations.
"As we keep requesting for more services or things that matter, for certain purposes, we keep exchanging the data. Now it becomes very hard to manage the data and the exposure of the information carried out to the data. and cross-border exchange," he said.
With time, Imani explained that information sharing has evolved where information and data can now be shared between countries. However, this comes with a complexity of how such data should be managed.
“When we talk now about the data crossing from one country to another country, there is a need for regularisation,” Imani said.
Bridging border barriers
While individual countries have made considerable progress in enacting data laws, he noted that those remain confined within national borders which makes cross border data exchange complicated despite the necessity.
“We need some common point where we, as East African countries, can agree on the way we exchange data between our nations, or with any country that impacts East Africa,” he said.
Further, he observed that data governance across the wider continent remains in its infancy which has also made it harder to have cross border regulations.
“Out of all African countries, we have only two African countries now, which are actually fully onboarded with everything in governance,” he noted.
With the increased use of AI in data processing pipelines, Imani noted that the lack of regional standards is becoming harder to ignore. For instance, he pointed out that Kenya leads in implementing AI frameworks, whereas Tanzania’s national AI policy remains in a draft stage undergoing stakeholder review.
Even so, he expressed optimism, highlighting the African Union’s guidance, shaped in part by the European Union’s regulatory model, as a practical benchmark for developing frameworks.
“The AU is now providing directions on how countries should actually move,” he said.
For Imani, regional harmonisation remains essential for East African nations seeking to share data securely while protecting citizen privacy.
