The Data Protection Commission (DPC) has outlined the legal breaches that led Ghana to reject a proposed $300 million health agreement with the United States.
The Executive Director of the Commission, Dr. Arnold Kavaarpuo, said a technical assessment found the deal to be in direct violation of the Data Protection Act, citing breaches of informed consent and data minimality.
He added that the agreement could have posed long-term risks, including the potential exploitation of DNA data by foreign pharmaceutical companies using artificial intelligence and machine learning.
“When you look at it, it might look like a noble idea, but you have to look at it from a broader scheme. One of the first things that Africa had was the natural resources of the continent.
“We have a lot of natural resources. And then the next big thing that we tend to have is in terms of the data.
“And when you look at the continent of Africa, Africa has a very youthful population. And so naturally, you are going to have a lot of these youths becoming the bulk of the population of the world.
“So when we outsource that information into jurisdictions that we do not control, the risk is that the core DNA markers of our population will now be in the hands of foreigners.”
According to a Reuters report, the deal formed part of Washington’s “America First Global Health Strategy,” a policy framework introduced under the Trump administration to restructure foreign aid and encourage recipient countries to take on greater responsibility for disease control programmes, including HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and polio.
The report said negotiations, which began in November 2025, would have provided about $109 million in U.S. health assistance to Ghana over five years.
However, discussions stalled after Ghanaian authorities objected to provisions requiring the sharing of sensitive national health data, which they considered unacceptable.
