As South Africa's data centre boom accelerates, civil society groups are petitioning the SAHRC for strict regulation and transparency before unmonitored facilities strain local water, land, and energy grids.

When the City of Cape Town's planning tribunal approved the land-use changes for a second Equinix hyperscale data centre in July, one member of the tribunal voted no. The information missing from the application, about the facilities' water and electricity use, he warned, "should not be ignored".

But it was. While the approval went through on the King Air Industria site, next door, residents of Bishop Lavis and of Barcelona and KTC informal settlements in Gugulethu remember queueing for water during Cape Town's water crisis of 2017-2018. When the developer was asked how much water the facilities would use, the answer was that this would be confirmed after approval.

That single sentence tells you most of what you need to know about how South Africa is handling the fastest data centre expansion on the African continent. This is why our five organisations have filed a joint submission to the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC), which is investigating the human rights implications of that boom.

Our argument is straightforward. Data centres are the physical backbone of the digital economy and South Africa needs digital infrastructure. But these are not ordinary buildings, and we are approving them as if they...