Surveillance is when your internet activity is monitored by external parties like Internet Service Providers (ISPs), private companies, your government, employers, criminal organisations, or even just other individuals.
As seen in the movies, it basically translates to being watched or followed by a dark van on the internet streets.
Surveillance can be used to monitor threats, prevent and investigate criminal activity but can be misused to unknowingly monitor your personal internet activities for political and commercial gain.
A recent allegation from the Cambridge Analytica scandal pins the Uhuru Kenyatta presidential campaign to have employed social media surveillance results to target campaign messages to different profiles of voters. This was possible because Facebook monitors your social media activity and can predict your behavior from that, hence such information is used to target messages that speak to your interests and emotions.
Surveillance has pros and cons but where do we draw the line on misuse. Some see the cons as advantages but at the expense of the entire citizenry.
Surveillance can affect the trust of citizens in their governments and in civic processes.
Uganda Regulatory Authority, a government agency recently issued a directive to all commercial banks to reveal all transactional activities of all account holders. They mentioned that they found the account details would be instrumental in their work. However instrumental the information might be, disclosing this information without concrete motive goes against the privacy rights of the customers. It can be termed as surveillance of citizen’s personal finance.
Your Social Media Profile: To Trust or Trash?
Imagine you’re heading to an interview for your dream job. But before you even step into the room, your future employer has already made their judgement about you based on your social media profile. Almost all employers, over 90 percent, say that they will search for your social media profiles before or during the interview process.
Even if you trust the people you share your profile with, these platforms create records on your activity and messaging. Once someone accesses your account or gets a hold of your device, your private information is now out!
Now, imagine that it’s not your future employer, but rather the government. How can they use your personal information to discriminate against the services you receive? Or to punish you for your negative opinions on their performance such as corruption or a lack of infrastructure? Human rights defenders and whistler blowers, i.e. a person who informs on a person or organization engaging in an unlawful or immoral activity, have often become victims of harassment, imprisonment, torture and even death due to the opinions that they have shared.
What do you think?
Does Surveillance improve Safety for Citizens?
Police and similar authorities use sophisticated methods to conduct targeted communications surveillance of people who might be deemed high-threat citizens such as political opponents, as well as simple methods such as procuring call data without official warrants from service providers. The use of such surveillance technology has a negative impact on free speech and curbs alternate view points in terms of political participation for fear of repercussions.
It is possible to justify this surveillance in the name of national security as a country must use national intelligent to protect its citizens from terrorist activities. However, despite these measures, women across Africa continue to victims of crimes such as sexual assault and murder, as was evidenced recently in 2017 in the Entebbe area where 23 women were killed.
The killer remains at large.
