A recent report that I co-edited, Smart City Surveillance in Africa: Mapping Chinese AI Surveillance Across 11 Countries, considers this question.
As the uproar around Uganda’s EPSAuto shows, there are concerns—often valid—that smart-city surveillance tools are being used to identify and monitor activists, opposition figures, critics, and protesters.
Activists, journalists, and opposition figures described altering travel routes, communication practices, and patterns of assembly in response to smart-city surveillance tools whose full capabilities remain unknown.
Regulation must keep pace with technology, which means applying the same principle to smart-city surveillance tools.
Smart-city surveillance technology can help governments investigate crimes, recover stolen vehicles, and improve public services without giving them carte blanche to track people.