The South African (SA) government\u2019s draft National Artificial Intelligence policy signals a more rights-conscious and constitutionally grounded approach, according to artificial intelligence (AI) communications expert Nazareen Ebrahim.<\/p>\n
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The draft, which aims to promote responsible AI development, was published in the Government Gazette this Saturday. It builds on SA\u2019s National Artificial Intelligence Policy Framework released in August 2024.<\/p>\n
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Interested parties have until the close of business on June 10 to submit comments on the draft policy.<\/p>\n
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Ebrahim says the 2026 draft is more firmly anchored in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and existing SA laws.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIt explicitly references legislation such as the Protection of Personal Information Act, the Promotion of Access to Information Act, the Cybercrimes Act and other parts of our legal framework. This is important because it shows that AI is being treated as a rights issue and a governance issue in the public interest, not just about innovation or economic opportunity,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
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She adds that the draft policy also strengthens focus on key areas such as skills development, infrastructure, research, ethics, privacy and transparency.<\/p>\n
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\u201cNow this new draft goes further. It begins to outline four key areas, which I was pleased to see. The first is governance architecture. The draft refers to mechanisms such as an AI ethics board, an AI Ombudsperson, a national AI commission and a risk-based approach to regulation. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in terms of accountability and governance,\u201d Ebrahim explains.<\/p>\n
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–SABC–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":31561,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[26],"class_list":["post-31560","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"'SA government\u2019s draft National Artificial Intelligence policy signals a more rights-conscious and constitutionally grounded approach'","published_date":"2026-04-11 15:58:36","news_description":"'SA government\u2019s draft National Artificial Intelligence policy signals a more rights-conscious and constitutionally grounded approach'","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/31560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/31560\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31571,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/31560\/revisions\/31571"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=31560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}