China sells ‘smart city’ systems that come with little accountability.
A shadowy industry is thriving alongside Africa’s digital boom: mass-surveillance systems powered by artificial intelligence. As Chinese-built surveillance technology is proliferating across the continent, experts are warning that it is a dangerous threat to citizens’ rights.
“You have highly sophisticated, high-definition, internet-based cameras that are filming 24-7, you can enable it with facial recognition,” independent researcher and journalist Heidi Swart told ADF. “If you combine that with a population register database, it allows you to actually track people as they go about their business. If you store up the data collected by all these cameras, it can give you an accurate map of a person’s movements over time.
“It’s highly, highly invasive, and there seems to be sort of an acceptance by the public.”
Eleven African governments have spent at least $2 billion on Chinese-made surveillance technology, according to a March 12 report by the Institute of Development Studies on “smart city” surveillance in Africa.
Chinese companies frequently sell the technology to governments in packages that include closed-circuit television systems with cameras that have AI-enabled facial recognition and can track vehicle movements. Experts say these tools are presented alongside a myth that they help reduce crime and modernize urban areas.
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