Patrick Burton

🇿🇦 researcher. child online protection, child rights, VAC & VAW, violence prevention. consultant @UNICEF Tunisia, Zimbabwe, Pacific Isles and others.

[5Rights Foundation @5RightsFound]

Research from Steve Wood and the Digital Futures for Children centre: major platforms responded to early regulation - then stalled.
The framework exists. What's missing is enforcement and safety by design built in from the start.
🔗https://t.co/saPmqp6IFF
#DigitalFutures4Children

[Terry Pratchett @terryandrob]

Each man thought: one of the others is bound to say something soon, some protest, and then I’ll murmur agreement, not actually say anything, I’m not as stupid as that, but definitely murmur very firmly, so that the others will be in no doubt that I thoroughly disapprove, because at a time like this it behooves all decent men to nearly stand up and be almost heard…
But no one said anything. The cowards, each man thought.
- Guards! Guards!

[Prof Ben Saul - UN SR Human Rights & Counterterror @profbensaul]

Ahead of RightsCon 2026, I join UN experts in warning against the spread of intrusive surveillance technologies, including those powered by artificial intelligence – and call for stronger human rights safeguards

[Phumzile Van Damme @zilevandamme]

I wrote this a little over a year ago and I think it even more relevant today.

[CIJ_ICJ @CIJ_ICJ]

PRESS RELEASE: Yesterday, the #Netherlands and #Iceland filed declarations of intervention under Article 63 of the #ICJ Statute in the case #SouthAfrica v. #Israel.

Link to the press release: https://t.co/qF2HaSBbI5

[Charlotte’s Mum @RobynPorteous]

@blaiklockBP South African white here, and no. You’re completely wrong. Also, there is no persecution or oppression of white folks here. And there never has been. Now rather keep quiet when you don’t know what you’re talking about - between us, it just makes you look foolish 😉

[Vukosi Marivate 🇿🇦🚀📊 @vukosi]

While discipline matters, this framing ignores the massive structural "invisible" barriers that make discipline possible in the first place. I’ll use myself as an example. Earlier this year, I went through Stanford’s LLM Engineering course. loved it. How did I consume it?
1/n

[Kerry Cullinan @kerrycullinan11]

@amenya_nelson 100%! Few African countries desperate for health aid are going to refuse - yet if Prez @WilliamsRuto and others stuck together, they could negotiate better terms. The US may well feed Africa's health data into AI to enable 'machine learning'. 😔

https://t.co/jYheKk2PSE

[Nelson Amenya @amenya_nelson]

URGENT: Kenya's Healthcare Sovereignty Under Siege

President Ruto is about to sign away Kenya's health data sovereignty through a fundamentally unconstitutional agreement with the US Government.

THE SMOKING GUN:
I have obtained three explosive documents:

1. Model Specimen Sharing Agreement
2. PEPFAR Bilateral MOU Template
3. Legal Advisory by Dr. Mugambi Laibuta proving this violates Kenyan law

HERE'S WHAT RUTO IS SIGNING:
REAL-TIME SURVEILLANCE OF ALL KENYANS

US gets 24/7 access to Kenya's ENTIRE national health database
Every HIV test, TB diagnosis, malaria case - accessible to US officials
Your medical records, your children's health data - all exposed
NO anonymization required
NO consent from you
NO restrictions on what they can see

YOUR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS? GONE.
Legal analysis confirms this violates:

Article 31: Your Right to Privacy - VIOLATED
Kenya Data Protection Act - COMPLETELY IGNORED
Health Act confidentiality provisions - BYPASSED
Digital Health Act - RENDERED USELESS

THE MOST DANGEROUS CLAUSE:
"This Agreement shall be construed in accordance with U.S. federal law."
Read that again. US law - not Kenyan law - will govern YOUR health data.
This means:

Office of Data Protection Commissioner: POWERLESS
Kenyan courts: NO JURISDICTION
Your data protection rights: DON'T EXIST
US has weaker privacy laws than Kenya: YOUR DATA LESS PROTECTED

IT GETS WORSE:
25-YEAR PATHOGEN EXTRACTION

Kenya must hand over disease specimens within 5 DAYS of US request
US shares with 10 private American pharmaceutical companies. They develop vaccines and drugs from OUR diseases. Kenya gets NOTHING guaranteed in return. US serves its own needs first. 25 YEARS of this arrangement

COUNTY GOVERNMENTS LOCKED OUT

Health is devolved - counties run these systems
Counties haven't been consulted
This violates Intergovernmental Relations Act

FINANCIAL BLACKMAIL BUILT IN:
"Failure to fulfill commitments could result in changes in planned assistance or discontinuation of this MOU."
Translation: Give us your data or lose funding.

WHAT THEY GET ACCESS TO:
Not just statistics. Not just aggregated data. They get:

Direct system access to query ANY patient record.

Rights to audit 5% of health facilities randomly selected

Access to lab results, treatment records, epidemiological data

Metadata and system architecture

Real-time disease surveillance

All diagnostic and testing data

50+ MILLION KENYANS' MEDICAL PRIVACY - GONE.
DR. MUGAMBI LAIBUTA'S LEGAL VERDICT:

"This Agreement, as drafted, is NOT legally compliant, poses CRITICAL constitutional and sovereignty risks, and must be SIGNIFICANTLY renegotiated before Kenya can lawfully sign or operationalize it."

THE BOTTOM LINE:
This is not cooperation. This is:

Data extraction disguised as aid.
Biopiracy of our pathogens for pharmaceutical profit.
Surveillance infrastructure embedded in our health systems.
Constitutional rights traded for donor dollars.
25 years of compromised sovereignty.

OTHER AFRICAN COUNTRIES ARE SAYING NO

The template shows this is being pushed across Africa. Reasonable countries are rejecting these terms. But Ruto, desperate for any "investment" narrative, is ready to sign away our most sensitive data.

WHAT MUST HAPPEN NOW:
This cannot be signed as drafted. The Constitution doesn't allow it. The law doesn't permit it. Our dignity as a sovereign nation demands better.
We need:

IMMEDIATE PUBLIC DISCLOSURE - Full text published

COUNTY CONSULTATION - Governors must weigh in

PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE - MPs must approve or reject

ODPC REVIEW - Data Protection Commissioner must audit for compliance

COMPLETE RENEGOTIATION - Fair terms or no deal

You cannot sign agreements that violate the Constitution. This is not about being anti-partnership. This is about protecting Kenyan citizens' rights and maintaining our sovereignty.

[LSE Media & Communications @MediaLSE]

@Livingstone_S spoke at the International Meeting on children’s rights & #AI:

“We must move beyond safety-by-design & privacy-by-design to embrace #ChildRights by Design.”

📜Declaration of Intent presented to #PopeLeo XIV: https://t.co/btCid1EBCx

#ChildRights #DigitalSafety

[LSE Media & Communications @MediaLSE]

📱 Children face new risks online—and new opportunities. Our #WorldChildrensDay panel explored what’s working, what’s not, and what’s urgently needed to protect their rights in digital spaces.

🎥 Watch: https://t.co/rqB5mBZAyy
🎧 Listen: https://t.co/veuC2C7jYA

@Livingstone_S

[Max du Preez @MaxduPreez]

If you had an ounce of loyalty to the people of South Africa, you would repudiate these lies, not repeat them. Your schadenfreude shows AfriSol's real attitude. Why did you not retweet all the other G20 leaders' praise for SA and the G20 summit? #kruipgatbytrump

[Noura Erakat @4noura]

“The mandate…focuses almost exclusively on disarming Palestinian armed groups while doing nothing to end the root cause of the violence: Israel’s ongoing unlawful siege, occupation, racial segregation and apartheid, and ethnic cleansing.”
#Gaza #UNSC https://t.co/0FMKdOMTM6

[Katy Katopodis @KatyKatopodis]

I know there’s A LOT going on in the news cycle (read CYCLONE🌪️) … but please take the time to read this!
It paints a devastating and frightening picture of one county’s bullying tactics.

[Richard Poplak @Poplak]

This is not a “bold statement”. It’s a lie.

He’s not criticizing “SA’s policies”, because SA doesn’t have these policies.

Don’t be shit. Seriously.

[Patrick Burton @CJCP_ED]

I wrote something! “It is past time to move beyond campaigns to raise awareness of these forms of (school) violence, as important as they are to draw attention to the problem.” #safeschools #endviolence ⁦@CIatUCT⁩ https://t.co/yycjBdMXi2

[Patrick Burton @CJCP_ED]

At my first event in South Africa for a few years (6!),the launch of the UCT Children’s Institute Child Gauge 2025, on the Intersections between violence against women and children (I wrote the chapter on schools!). Lovely to see some old friends.

[Brett Herron 🇿🇦🍉 @brettherron]

I’ve just heard that the boat, part of the Gaza air flotilla, carrying Mandla Mandela has been intercepted and that Mandela has been captured.
A Mandela being captured, yet again, while fighting for human rights and justice is a shocking repeat of history.
The fact that the Spanish & Italian protection vessels turned back and abandoned the flotilla is outrageous. You’re either in this for the right reasons, then you see it to the end, or its performance.
There’s a legal & moral duty on the world to defend the universal human rights of the people of Palestine & the smallest act was to protect and defend the aid flotilla.

[Kitty van der Heijden @KittyvdHeijden]

Investing in children has a high ROI. It not only makes great financial sense but investing in young people is investing in all our futures. Read my article with @ReutersBiz on a bold new initiative by @AgendaCAF!

#foreverychild @uniceflac

https://t.co/GafF4yQWPd

[Alliance for HPSR @AllianceHPSR]

To help inform ongoing discussions on the future of global health in a new era, a new Nature Medicine comment presents key questions for rethinking the functions of global health in an era of declining solidarity and reduced aid.

Read the article > https://t.co/TnY9dHFDMy