On April 4, 2024, the House of Peoples Representatives of Ethiopia announced via its Facebook page that the Parliament had approved the Personal Data Protection Bill. In particular, the bill outlines the data subject rights, the principles of personal data processing, and other conditions necessary to protect the rights of individuals when personal data is processed and establishes an independent supervisory authority.

Definitions and scope

The bill provides a definition for data and notably defines 'physical identity data' as facial image, fingerprint, or other similar personal data, obtained from a known technical processing process that helps to uniquely identify or verify the identity of a natural person based on physical, physiological and behavioral characteristics.

In addition, the bill refers to the data subject as an 'identifiable natural person' and defines it as a name, identification number, telephone number, internet identification address, location data, online identification, or a natural person who can be identified directly or indirectly by using one or more identifiers related to the physical, internal body, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social conditions associated with that natural person.

Furthermore, the scope of the bill applies to any personal data applicable to a data controller or data processor:

• if it is established in Ethiopia and the data is compiled by the organization in terms of context; or
• although it is not established in Ethiopia, the data is processed using a device located in Ethiopia and is not intended to leave Ethiopia, but only if there is an agent based in Ethiopia.

Moreover, the bill also provides the obligations for data controllers when processing the personal data of a minor.

Finally, the Ministry of Innovation and Technology of Ethiopia also confirmed, via its X (formerly Twitter) account, the approval of this bill as Proclamation No. 1321/2016.

You can read the Facebook post here, the X post here, and the bill here, all only available in Amharic.