South Africa will host the first African conference on information ethics, the Communications Department said.

The conference seeks to deal with the ethical challenges posed by the use of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) in Africa.

The three-day event to take place from Monday in Pretoria, will be jointly coordinated by the Departments of Communications, Arts and Culture and the Presidential National Commission on Information Society and Development.

Some of these challenges, the department said, included creation and distribution of computer viruses, virtual crimes such as identity theft and corruption using the ICTs.

Themed: Ethical Challenges of the Information Age, the conference will bring together policy makers and academics from around the world.

More than 80 participants from several African and European countries are expected to participate.

African countries expected to participate are Botswana, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Egypt, Ethiopia, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Mauritius, Namibia, Nigeria, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Kenya.

Germany, Austria and the United Kingdom will represent Europe.

According to the Department, the decision to hold the conference in Africa was taken at the last conference in Germany in 2005 where there was an absence of African ICT experts.

"During the Information Ethics Conference held in Germany, international experts discussed information ethics challenges affecting their countries. Due to the absence of African experts, a decision was taken to hold an African chapter of the conference," the department said.

Among other issues expected to dominate the agenda are:

* Development, poverty and ICTs

* Global and Human Security

* Information corruption and injustice

* Protection and promotion of indigenous knowledge

* Freedom of Access to Information (Intellectual Property legislation, open access movement)

* Internet exclusion

Communications Minister Ivy Matsepe-Cassaburi is expected to officially open and address the conference.