03/03/2026
The Wits - University of the Witwatersrand School of Law is pleased to announce the Call for Papers for the African Cyber Law Conference (ACLC 2026). 🤖🌍🌐
Hosted by the Wits School of Law and sponsored by the South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR), the second edition of ACLC will take place at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, on 24–25 March 2026.
Theme: Resilient and Responsible Design: Governing AI, Expression and Digital Media
As African states, institutions and markets advance within an AI-enabled and data-intensive environment, fundamental regulatory questions arise. How should digital systems be designed to foster innovation while protecting constitutional rights? How can governance frameworks anticipate and mitigate systemic harm? What regulatory architectures are required to secure accountability, transparency and fairness at scale?
ACLC 2026 will address, among others, the following areas:
✅AI governance and algorithmic fairness;
✅Platform regulation and content moderation;
✅Deepfakes and synthetic media;
✅Disinformation and electoral integrity;
✅Cybercrime and digital evidence;
✅Online safety, hate speech and defamation;
✅Copyright and digital trade;
✅Multilingual AI and African language resources
Digital technologies are reshaping governance, commerce and civic participation across the continent. Yet these developments are accompanied by heightened risks, including surveillance, manipulation, automated bias, online harm and regulatory fragmentation.
ACLC 2026 seeks to move beyond abstract debate. The conference expressly invites policy briefs that articulate practical and implementable recommendations directed at regulators, legislators, civil society actors and industry stakeholders.
We welcome submissions from scholars, practitioners and policy specialists working at the intersection of:
📕Law and technology;
📕AI and governance;
📕Digital policy and regulation;
📕Cybersecurity and platform accountability.
ACLC 2026 aims to serve as a forum for rigorous scholarship and principled policy engagement, contributing to a coherent and context-sensitive cyber law agenda for Africa.
Further details, including submission guidelines, are available here:
https://lnkd.in/d3xP6GcW
