Tanazia - Market Insights

Artificial intelligence (AI) has rapidly emerged as a transformative force, promising to modernise public services and drive economic growth all over the world, including in Tanzania’s economy. AI is able to process vast amount of data; automate decision making; enhance predictive analytics and improve efficiency and innovation. In Tanzania, AI is already transforming sectors of the economy such as education, agriculture, health and the justice system.

The rapid advancement of AI has totally outpaced the development of corresponding legal and regulatory frameworks, and this has left gaps and uncertainties. Tanzania lacks a dedicated, overarching policy framework to regulate the use of AI technologies. However, AI-related legal aspects may be found in some existing legal instruments, albeit not in an advanced or most up-to-date fashion — namely the Constitution of the United Republic of Tanzania, 1977; the Data Protection Act, 13 June, 2023; the Cybercrimes Act, GN. No. 528 of 2015; the Guidelines for the Secure and Ethical Use of AI; and the National AI strategy and Ethical Guidelines, 2025. The policy, legal and regulatory frameworks have not kept pace with rapid technological developments.

The fast-paced emergence of AI technologies has raised several issues or challenges, particularly on matters regarding the ownership of AI-generated works; algorithmic bias and discrimination; privacy of personal data; and safety and security of personal data. For instance, the advances in generative AI are enabling the creation of literary, artistic and music works without human input; but this challenges the traditional view under Tanzania’s Copyrights and Neighbouring Act, 1999, which provides for the protection of the copyrights in literary, artistic and musical works authored by a “natural person”. In similar vein, the protection of rights under the Constitution of the United Republic of Tanzania pertains to persons and this right does not apply to AI as AI is not a person. Thus, AI not being a person, its works cannot be protected under Tanzanian law. This legal gap in the protection of AI-generated works will definitely impact the country adversely in terms of stifling innovation, as innovators will have no incentives. Additionally, there will be no interest in investments in the area as there are no attached financial benefits; no investor will put their money where there is no guarantee return on investment. However, this problem is not a Tanzanian one, and it must be pointed out that there is a worldwide debate whether AI-generated content should be granted copyright protection. Since there are countries that protect AI-generated works, Tanzania should also follow suit for the reasons that have been pointed out above. Some authors are arguing that there ought to be an alternative view whereby owners or developers of AI should be recognised under the law and pertaining rights should be granted to them.

AI systems can inadvertently perpetuate and amplify biases, leading to discrimination. In Tanzania, the National Digital Education Guideline for AI Education, 2025 identifies areas where AI may be deployed in the education sector, including in the automatic grading system and performance analysis, simplifying teachers’ workloads. The use of AI in education is raising ethical concerns, especially regarding potential bias in the automated grading system.

AI, particularly machine learning and deep learning, relies on vast amounts of high-quality data to learn, identify patterns and make decisions or predictions. The lack of sufficient and representative data can result in biased outcomes and inaccurate results. In such processes, personal data can be accessed and potentially may be misused. As such, there is a need for the law to ensure effective privacy protection and that ethical and responsible use of data controls are in place to prevent unauthorised data access or misuse. In this regard, Section 36 of the Personal Data Protection Act, 2022 relates to automated data processing, which is key for AI applications involving data collection and analysis, and it requires that AI-driven data collection and decision-making processes must not compromise personal privacy and data security. However, the enforcement of this provision can be a challenge, because rights and duties must go hand in hand. The law does not recognise authorship of the AI-generated works because of a lack of human authorship, and if there is no human authorship in AI generated works, against whom will the breach of privacy by the AI be enforced?

Tanzania needs to expedite the development of a dedicated national AI strategy and legal and regulatory frameworks with relevant institutions that will keep pace with the rapid advancement in AI technologies, spur innovation and protect the public. To this end, there is a need to have a dedicated AI regulatory authority. Such authority must ensure the implementation of AI Ethics and Compliance Sandboxes to effectively balance innovation with regulation (an AI Sandbox is a secure, isolated and controlled virtual environment where developers, researchers and organisations can test, develop and experiment with artificial intelligence models and applications without affecting live production systems or risking data leaks). Last but not least, Tanzania must also strengthen data protection law to address AI-specific risks related to privacy, accountability and bias as discussed above.