Terms & Conditions: How Apps Legally Own Your Life

 

Terms & Conditions: How Apps Legally Own Your Life

A View from the Global South

By Jeammie Taonga Chakulya

Introduction: The Agreement Nobody Read

Imagine this scene: it is an afternoon in Lusaka, Zambia, and a young girl installs her first mobile app, WhatsApp. She encounters a lengthy block of text, scrolls through it without reading, presses “I Agree,” and enters the digital world.

At that very moment, she may have unknowingly granted permission for her data to be collected, her online behaviour to be analysed, and her digital activities to be tracked by companies she may never encounter directly—companies whose business models often depend on data collection and analysis.

This is not merely a hypothetical scenario. For millions of people across Africa and the wider Global South, it is an everyday reality. Terms and Conditions, often filled with dense legal language, have become some of the most influential yet least understood legal documents of the twenty-first century. While debates continue in Western countries about whether users truly understand what they agree to online, the issue takes on an entirely different dimension when viewed through an African perspective.

What Terms and Conditions Actually Say

At their core, Terms and Conditions (T&Cs) are legally binding agreements between users and technology companies. By clicking “I Agree,” users typically consent to the collection of personal data, permit companies to process and share that data, accept limitations on their legal remedies in disputes, and allow companies to update the agreement in the future.

A clear example can be found in WhatsApp's 2021 privacy policy update. Across Africa, the changes generated significant concern among privacy advocates and civil society organizations. According to the Open Institute of Kenya, WhatsApp, which is owned by Meta Platforms Inc., collected numerous categories of metadata, including phone numbers, location information, device details, IP addresses, mobile network information, and usage patterns.

Importantly, users were not given the option to negotiate these terms. Those who disagreed with the policy risked losing access to the platform altogether. For many people, this was hardly a meaningful choice, particularly in regions where WhatsApp serves as a primary communication tool.

A particularly important issue was the difference in how WhatsApp approached users outside the European Union compared to those within it. European users benefited from protections under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), including greater transparency regarding data processing, stronger privacy rights, and stricter restrictions on cross-border data transfers.

Many African users, however, did not receive equivalent protections. According to analyses by TechHive Advisory Africa, data processing outside the EU often relied on broad consent clauses and company-defined standards rather than comprehensive legal safeguards. This created a significant imbalance in digital rights and protections.

The African Context: Why Terms and Conditions Matter Differently

To understand why Terms and Conditions present a particularly serious challenge in Africa, three interconnected issues must be considered: digital literacy, language barriers, and legal protection.

Digital Literacy and Informed Consent

According to a 2025 UNESCO report, only 36 percent of Africa's population can perform basic internet-related tasks. This has important implications for digital privacy and informed consent.

Research examining data protection frameworks in countries such as Kenya and Nigeria has found that limited digital literacy creates significant barriers to meaningful consent. If individuals do not understand what data is being collected, how it is being used, or what rights they may be surrendering, then the concept of informed consent becomes difficult to defend.

The problem is compounded by the complexity of legal language. Studies show that reading an application's Terms and Conditions in full can take anywhere between nine and thirty-two minutes. Most users spend only a few seconds reviewing these agreements before accepting them.

For individuals with limited internet experience or legal knowledge, understanding such documents becomes even more challenging.

The Language Barrier

Africa is home to more than 2,000 languages, making it one of the most linguistically diverse regions in the world. Yet most Terms and Conditions are written exclusively in English, French, or other European languages.

This creates a significant barrier for users whose first language may be Bemba, Nyanja, Tonga, Swahili, Yoruba, or any of the hundreds of other languages spoken across the continent.

Under such circumstances, can consent truly be considered informed?

When legal agreements are written in complex terminology and presented in unfamiliar languages, users may have little practical understanding of what they are agreeing to.

Weak and Uneven Legal Protection

The third challenge concerns legal enforcement.

While significant progress has been made in recent years, with more than 36 African countries adopting data protection laws, implementation remains inconsistent. Regulatory institutions are often underfunded, enforcement mechanisms may be weak, and digital rights protections continue to evolve.

In Zambia, for example, discussions surrounding stronger cybersecurity and digital governance frameworks gained momentum only recently, with efforts to strengthen national cybersecurity institutions continuing into 2024.

As a result, many users remain vulnerable despite the existence of legal protections on paper.

Africa Pushes Back

Despite these challenges, change is beginning to emerge.

Nigeria, home to more than 50 million WhatsApp users, has increasingly challenged Meta's data collection practices, setting an important precedent for digital rights enforcement across the continent.

In South Africa, policymakers have proposed measures that would require major technology companies to compensate local users for the commercial use of their data.

Globally, governments are also becoming more willing to hold technology companies accountable. In 2024, India imposed significant penalties on Meta over concerns regarding data-sharing practices and user consent.

These developments suggest that the era of unchecked data extraction may be facing greater scrutiny than ever before.

Conclusion

The young woman in Lusaka who clicked “I Agree” did not lose her rights because she was careless.

She lost them because the system was designed to make meaningful agreement nearly impossible.

Terms and Conditions, in their current form, are often less a negotiation between equals and more a legal monologue delivered by powerful corporations to users with little bargaining power. For millions of people across Africa and the Global South, this is not simply an inconvenience—it is a digital rights issue hidden behind pages of legal text.

As awareness of digital privacy grows and governments begin strengthening protections, users are increasingly recognizing the value of their data and the importance of understanding their rights.

The apps may have gained access to your digital life through legal agreements, but awareness is where control begins to shift back.

In the digital age, legal literacy is no longer optional. It is essential.

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