Cybersecurity and Cybercrime Laws in the SADC Region https://zimbabwe.misa.org the restriction of citizens’ rights to free speech, privacy and access to information, thereby undermining efforts to bridge the digital divide. 2) The SADC Model Law on Data Security; and Internet shutdowns in particular during elections and during public protests and demonstrations are becoming commonplace (Mare, 2020). State surveillance in cyberspace as well as private spaces is on the increase, limiting civic space for engagement and critical opinion, and further curtailing an enabling environment for such engagement (Hunter and Mare, 2020). In addition, insult laws such as those meant to protect Heads of State and Government and other senior government officials from scrutiny and criticism have been invoked to limit public debate on social media regarding governance, democracy and human rights. Laws to protect the integrity of e-commerce have been used to prevent non-governmental organisations and human rights defenders from opening and operating bank accounts and from transacting, thereby curtailing their work. All these issues have brought to the fore the debate about the need for States to balance the regulation of the digital/online space or prevent online crime and the promotion and protection of citizens’ digital/online rights. However, the spread of ICTs and Internet penetration has also raised concerns about cyber security at regional and sub-regional governance forums (Orji, 2015, 105). This has led African intergovernmental organisations to develop legal frameworks for cyber security. At a subregional level, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has adopted a Directive on Cybercrime, while the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) have adopted model laws. In Southern Africa, there are three model laws worth mentioning here. These are 1) The SADC Model Law on Computer Crimes and Cybercrimes; 4 3) The SADC Model Law on Electronic Transactions and Electronic Commerce. At the regional level, the African Union (AU) has adopted a Convention on Cyber Security and Personal Data Protection. Individual countries like Zambia, Botswana, Tanzania, and Malawi have enacted cybersecurity laws as part of their internet governance frameworks while in countries like Zimbabwe, South Africa and Namibia plans are afoot to pass the similar legislation. Unfortunately the developed and or proposed legal frameworks have been narrowed down to entirely prioritising the protection of ‘national interests’ and the prevention of ‘social media abuse’ at the expense of the digital security and protection privacy of general and day-to-day internet users in the SADC region. These instruments have therefore also been characterised as vehicles for legitimising surveillance and criminalising free expression in the SADC region. The situation has been made worse by the fact that ever since the fast spreading of the novel coronavirus (also known as COVID-19), almost every facet of human life has been forced to migrate online in order to circumvent lockdown, social distancing and self-isolation protocols. In this ‘new normal’, the internet and digital media technologies have become indispensable part of learning, news consumption, e-commerce, accessing government documents and contact tracing. This digital turn in everyday life has been accompanied by concomitant digitisation of criminal conduct. In view of these concerns, MISA-Zimbabwe commissioned this particular study, which specifically focuses on the analysis of the enacted and proposed cyber laws in the SADC region and how they have impacted the exercise of rights more specifically, the right to privacy, freedom of expression and media freedom.