Digital Surveillance in Southern Africa Policies, Politics and Practices

This book critically examines the manifest and latent practices of surveillance in the southern African region, using case studies from South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Namibia, Botswana and Mozambique. The book demonstrates the growing role of super-powers in the construction and normalization of the surveillance state. It traces the digitization of surveillance practices to the rapid adoption of smart CCTV, facial recognition technologies and EMSI catchers. Through predictive policing mechanisms, state security agencies have appropriated digital media technologies for sentiment analysis, constant monitoring of digital footprints of security targets, and even deploying cyber-troops on popular social media platforms.

The authors argue that surveillance practices have thus been digitized with deleterious impact on the right to privacy, peaceful assembly and freedom of expression in the region. Furthermore, they argue that specific laws and regulations governing surveillance practices in the region are lagging behind. Finally, the book demonstrates how digital surveillance have significantly infiltrated the political, economic and social fabric of Southern Africa.

This book provides much needed systematic, cutting-edge research into the trends, practices, policies and geo-political interests at the center of surveillance practices in the region, providing a crucial link between human rights, such as freedom of privacy and expression, and political authoritarianism. 

Chapter 2: The Political Economy of Digital Surveillance: Actors, Powers and Interests

Chapter 3: Regulating and Legislating Surveillance

Chapter 4: Public Space and Communication Surveillance

Chapter 5: Mainstreaming Surveillance Through the Biometrification of Everyday Life

Chapter 6: Quotidian Forms of Resistance to Surveillance

Chapter 7: Conclusions: The Bigger Picture of Surveillance Futures

Allen Munoriyarwa is a Research Fellow in the Department of Media and Communication, at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa.

Admire Mare is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication and Media at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. He is also a Research Fellow at the African Centre for the Study of the United States, University of the Witwatersrand.