Namibia

Summary

Namibia has minimal digital-era legal infrastructure for web crawling. No comprehensive data protection law exists as of May 2026; the Data Protection Bill was tabled in the National Assembly in late October 2025 (Order Paper 14 October 2025 confirms it entered the legislative pipeline) but has not been enacted. No dedicated cybercrime law exists; the Cybercrime Bill 2026 was circulating for stakeholder validation in April 2026 and commentary through April 2026 described it as "not yet fit for purpose" and heading toward parliament — not yet enacted. The Electronic Transactions Act 4 of 2019 governs electronic commerce and admissibility of electronic evidence but does not establish computer-access offences. The practical legal framework for web crawling therefore rests on general common-law principles (Namibia is a common-law jurisdiction) and the copyright provisions of the Copyright and Neighbouring Rights Protection Act 1994. No sui generis database right. The absence of a data protection law means there is no statutory restriction on collecting personal data from public web pages, though constitutional privacy rights (Art. 13 Namibian Constitution) may be invoked in extreme cases. Both pending bills are actively advancing and could enact within 2026. Confidence kept low pending enactment.