Nairobi, June 23 -- The next time a mobile lender asks to access your call logs or a hospital receptionist photocopies your ID card "for the records", you need to ask yourself several questions. Who said they could have that information? What are they doing with it? Can you get it back?

Kenya has an answer to these questions, and it is in a law called the Data Protection Act of 2019. The Office of the Data Protection Commissioner (ODPC), which was created to enforce that law, has been busy building one of Africa's most detailed sets of rules about how your personal information should be handled. It has published guidance notes covering sectors from health and education to elections, the media, and the public sector.

What is the big idea...