ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

• A national policy framework for artificial intelligence (AI) is apparently still open for public comment. This is noting that:
  • it appears to have been published as far back as 14 August 2024 but was neither gazetted nor posted on the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies website
  • a notice posted on 25 October 2024 in the margin of the website’s home page under ‘current affairs’ features a dysfunctional link, nevertheless calling for input by 29 November 2024.
• The August 2024 version of the proposed policy framework is built around several ‘strategic AI pillars’:
  • talent/capacity development
  • digital infrastructure
  • research, development and innovation
  • public sector implementation
  • ethical guidelines
  • privacy and data protection
  • safety and security
  • transparency and explainability, and
  • fairness (mitigating bias).

 

GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE

• A presidential proclamation was gazetted announcing the commencement of the National Council on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide Act, which prescribes the institutional arrangements necessary for the council’s effective functioning.

• The council was established in keeping with the requirements of a national strategic plan developed by an interim steering committee established in April 2019 – in keeping with resolutions taken at a presidential summit the previous year.

 

CAPTIVE LION INDUSTRY

• The Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment gazetted a notice and issued a media statement inviting industry participants to register for government’s voluntary exit programme on the understanding that:
  • they may choose later not to participate
  • that those who remain in the programme will be required to:
    • sterilise all captive lions in their facility/ies
    • ensure that the necessary standards are in place for the maintenance and well-being of all sterilised lions and those waiting to be sterilised
    • apply for permits under the prevailing threatened or protected species legislation, and
    • refrain from accepting or acquiring any additional captive lions, and that
  • under an associated the programme lion bone stockpiles and derivatives will be acquired and legally disposed of.
• The department also gazetted a notice and issued a media statement calling for public comments on draft regulations intended to prohibit certain industry-related activities. Underpinned by government’s policy position on conserving and making sustainable use of four iconic species including lions, activities to be prohibited would include establishing and registering new ‘facilities’ for:
  • captive lion breeding
  • the commercial exhibition and/or rehabilitation of captive lions, and
  • ‘any other controlled environments’ making use of live lions.

 

Prepared by Pam Saxby