South African tech regulators team up

Four of South Africa’s ICT sector regulators have formed a forum to increase collaboration in the sector.

The assembly is called the Information, Communication Technologies and Media Regulators Forum and comprises four state bodies.

These are the Information Regulator, the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa), the Film and Publications Board (FPB), and the .ZA Domain Name Authority (Zadna).

Icasa CEO Tshiamo Maluleka-Disemelo has been appointed as the forum’s chairperson.

While it currently only consists of four members, the forum plans to extend invitations to other South African regulators.

“It’s very important that the regulatory bodies and entities come together, work together, share information, undertake joint research, and ensure alignment between the one another,” Icasa’s Dr Charley Lewis told SABC.

“Often there is regulatory overlap. So, it is important that we come together to strengthen each of the individual regulators.”

All members emphasise the need to stay abreast of changes in the evolving ICT sector to create a streamlined regulatory environment.

“I think the most important issue is to get clarity on where one body begins and where it ends and communicate that to the public,” said Media Monitoring Africa director William Bird.

“Then we need to start looking at the major challenges we have. Cybercrime is a huge big, child sexual abuse material and online harms are another. Then there is also the problem of sustainable public broadcasting and spectrum issues.”

This regulatory forum comes after several unsuccessful attempts to combine several sector regulators into a single entity.

In May this year, the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies (DCDT) abandoned a planned integration of Zadna, Icasa, and FPB.

The department’s annual performance plan for the 2024/25 financial year stated that “the strategic re-alignment has since been abandoned, and ZADNA has been requested to pursue a DNS regulator of the future.”

In October 2017, the communications department — then known as the Department of Telecommunications and Postal Services — announced a similar strategy.

However, the initial plan was to merge the department, ZADNA, Icasa, and the Universal Service and Access Agency of South Africa (USAASA).

Then-minister Siyabonga Cwele explained that the spread of regulation across the four entities resulted in overlapping and duplicating roles and a lack of coordination between entities.

The department presented a new bill to create a “super-regulator” to regulate the ICT sector.

The department said the merger would dissolve USAASA and transform it into a standalone funding agency to support universal service and access.

The department relaunched the plan two years later when then-communications minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams announced plans to merge ZADNA, Icasa, and the FPB.

During her announcement, Ndabeni-Abrahams said her department was developing a “smart regulation” model in South Africa that would integrate the three regulatory bodies.

The minister said the DCDT would explore new funding mechanisms for the all-in-one regulator.

The DCDT affirmed the plan in a December 2020 announcement, saying it had embarked on a process to merge the entities in accordance with the state-owned enterprises rationalisation plan.

“Domain name authority ZADNA, the Film and Publications Board, and Icasa will merge to form one regulator,” the DCDT said.

“The Universal Service and Access Agency of South Africa will be repurposed to establish a state-owned digital fund company.”

The Internet Service Provider Association of South Africa (ISPA) raised concerns over the integration in January 2021.

“ISPA believes there are good reasons to align regulatory functions in the ICT sector,” it stated.

“Great care will need to be taken to ensure that this does not cause disruption at a time when there is massive growth in the industry and in demand for infrastructure and services provided by it,” ISPA said.