Principles of Mobile Privacy and Security

Welcome to your course on Principles of Mobile Privacy and Security!

This course is designed for policymakers, regulators, and digital-sector leaders across Africa, where over 800 million people reach the internet through a mobile device and almost nothing else. Most mobile privacy failures happen not because the law was absent, but because security and privacy were treated as separate afterthoughts bolted on once a service was already live. This course flips that around. It treats privacy and security as two sides of one design discipline, grounds every principle in real African data protection regimes, and equips you to anticipate the next wave of risk rather than react to the last breach.

The curriculum opens with the legal and conceptual foundations, including the four core attributes of privacy and the data protection principles that run from the AU Malabo Convention to Nigeria's NDPA. It then shows how security enables privacy through the CIA triad and the Security and Privacy by Design disciplines, examines the emerging risks of location inference, IoT, Big Data and AI, and closes with future-proof governance: smart regulation, the DPIA process, the privacy implications of 5G, and the nine GSMA Mobile Privacy Principles.

By mastering these concepts, you will be equipped to assess mobile privacy risks against the law, embed security and privacy into services from the design stage, and apply a structured impact assessment to real mobile data decisions in your own local context.

Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this course, you will be able to:

• Explain the four core attributes of mobile privacy and the data protection principles that underpin African frameworks from the AU Malabo Convention to national laws.
• Apply the CIA triad and the Security and Privacy by Design disciplines to identify how security controls enable, rather than compete with, privacy on mobile services.
• Analyse the emerging privacy risks created by location inference, the Internet of Things, Big Data aggregation, and AI-driven proxy discrimination.
• Design a future-proof governance response using smart regulation principles, the DPIA process, and the nine GSMA Mobile Privacy Principles.

Who is this course for?

This course is designed for policymakers, regulators, and digital-sector leaders across Africa. It is highly beneficial for individuals who are:

• Responsible for data protection, telecommunications regulation, or mobile and digital policy and legislation.
• Designing, reviewing, or procuring mobile services, apps, or platforms that handle personal data.
• Working in mobile operators, fintech, or public digital services and accountable for privacy and security outcomes.