Huawei surveillance tech will keep African cities safe but activists worry
In Europe and the US, tense debates have broken out over the
national security ramifications of allowing Huawei to be involved in the
construction of new 5G networks.
The UK has approved a limited role for the Shenzhen,
China-based company in its upcoming wireless infrastructure despite sustained
pressure from the US to exclude them. Part of the challenge is that despite
racking up $121 billion in revenue around the world last year, Huawei is seen
in some US political quarters as an extension of the Chinese government which
can be used to spy on rival nations.
In a recent letter sent to the UK’s House of Commons, a
group of US Senators urged the UK to reverse its decision, citing the
“significant security, privacy and economic threats posed by Huawei.”
Across Africa, however, Huawei faces controversy of a
different nature.
The Chinese telecoms equipment giant, which reportedly built
up to 70% of the continent’s 4G infrastructure, stands accused of selling
technologies to potentially repressive governments as part of its “Safe City”
initiative and in so doing helping to undermine human rights in these
countries.
Safe City initiatives are the Huawei’s flagship public
safety solution designed to provide local authorities with a wide range of
modern products and rely on a series of Internet of Things (IoT) devices
intended to improve policing efforts.
The initiatives have expanded rapidly and are now active in
over 700 cities and regions, including many in China.
A recent report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute
claimed the company has also been active in Xinjiang, where a complex web of
surveillance technologies has been deployed to assist the forced detention of
an estimated 1.5 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minority groups.
The company has repeatedly denied involvement in the region.
In its latest ‘Safe City’ brochure, the company promotes its
“automated, intelligent policing information systems” and boasts of its
“omnipresent sensing” and “intelligent surveillance” capabilities.
There are currently 12 ‘Safe City’ programs in sub-Saharan
Africa, including in Uganda, Kenya and South Africa, according to the Center
for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a think tank based in
Washington DC.
Eight of the 12 initiatives in Africa are in countries
deemed “partly free” and “not free” by Freedom House and globally, just 29% of
all ‘Safe City’ initiatives are in countries regarded as “free,” according to
CSIS.
Of course, Huawei’s willingness to trade with authoritarian
regimes is certainly not unique among major telecoms and tech suppliers.
However, given the company’s dominance in the African
telecommunications sector, concerns remain that its sophisticated tools, which
include facial recognition cameras and social media monitoring tools, will be
used by authoritarian-leaning regimes to undermine human rights.
“Huawei’s Safe City initiative undoubtedly threatens human
rights in Uganda, including the right to peaceful assembly and association as
the country prepares for [the] 2021 general elections,” said Dorothy Mukasa,
CEO of Unwanted Witness, a Ugandan digital rights advocacy organization.
In August 2019, the Ugandan police force announced it had
purchased facial recognition cameras from the company at a cost of $126 million
as part of a ‘Safe City’ agreement.
“This is an extension of China’s surveillance apparatus into
Uganda through [the] Ugandan Police force, an agency with a track record of
brutalizing journalists and opposition politicians,” Mukasa added.
The Ethiopian government, where an internet shutdown in the
Oromia region is nearing its fourth month, also has a ‘Safe City’ agreement
with the company. The country has a long history of using sophisticated
technologies acquired from private companies based in both China and the West
as means of stifling dissent.
Last year, however, Huawei faced allegations few other
companies have. A Wall Street Journal investigation alleged that the company
had been helping the Ugandan and Zambian regimes track opposition politicians,
including the popular musician and MP Bobi Wine.
The company vehemently denied the accusations, as have the
Ugandan and Zambian authorities.
When asked if company implemented any safeguards to ensure
the technology would not violate human rights, Adam Lane, the senior director
of Public Affairs for Huawei’s Southern Africa division, said: “Huawei develops
technology not public policy. That is the role of policy makers and
legislators.”
“Huawei does not manage, use or have access to any of our
systems—we only sell them to the customer and train them how to use it. It is
up to individual countries to set their own policies, regulations and laws to
govern how such systems are used, and for their legal systems to ensure
implementation,” Lane added.
Many of the technologies sold as part of Huawei’s ‘Safe
City’ initiatives are now also commonplace in democratic countries. Live facial
recognition cameras, for example, were recently deployed in in London. The
decision garnered staunch criticism from civil liberties organizations in the
United Kingdom.
“Around the world in developed countries as well as
developing countries, facial recognition cameras are being trialed to help
identify, locate and catch criminals which can both improve crime conviction
rates and thus also improve deterrence,” Lane said.
However, concerns over how such technology may be deployed
in the African context have been exacerbated by a lack of regulatory safeguards
and privacy legislation across the continent. “In Africa, many countries are
still grappling with the fundamentals of privacy and data protection,” says
Juliet Nanfuka of the digital rights advocacy organization, the Collaboration
on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA).
This has led to “many gaps which question the extent to
which national security or state surveillance programs of individuals are
proportionate, fair, and in compliance with international norms and standards,”
Nanfuka continued.
Huawei is the leading provider of surveillance tools to
African governments in around 15 countries, but it is not the only one. In many
African countries, which are dealing with the convergence of a youth bulge,
high unemployment and aging leaders, some of who have been in place as long as
large portions of their population, the risk of conflict and agitation
encourages the need for these tools.
Huawei has defended its use of surveillance measures and
stressed the impact of its initiatives on local crime rates.
“Huawei’s safe city solution has multiple benefits, some of
which are not well known to the public, and often the impact is not publicized
by the police forces for security reasons,” Lane said.
In Nairobi, the company has claimed its ‘Safe City’
initiative led to a 46% drop in the regional crime rate in 2015.
Jonathan Hillman, director of the Reconnecting Asia Project
at CSIS, is more skeptical about the impact of the initiatives. “With all the
tracking and real-time data that Huawei’s ‘Safe Cities’ claim to provide, it is
striking that very little information about the performance of these systems is
available,” he said.
In the CSIS report, Hillman and Maesea McCalpin said the
impact of the solutions on policing efforts “are difficult to verify and appear
grossly exaggerated in some cases.”
Debates surrounding the need to balance public safety
considerations with human rights protections are unlikely to subside in the coming
months and, as increasingly sophisticated technologies are introduced across
the continent, Huawei is likely to come under increased public scrutiny.
To ensure that human rights are protected, Nanfuka said that
more effective policy, legal and regulatory frameworks were needed.
Without this, “the apprehension around facial recognition
surveillance, despite being termed as “smart cities” or “safe cities” will
remain, particularly in states which have a poor human rights track record,”
Nanfuka said.
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