Digital Surveillance in Africa: Power, Agency, and Rights

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Tony Roberts (Institute of Development Studies (IDS), UK) Admire Mare (University of Johannesburg, South Africa)

Digital Surveillance in Africa

Power, Agency, and Rights

Tony Roberts (Institute of Development Studies (IDS), UK), Admire Mare (University of Johannesburg, South Africa)

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English

Zed Books Ltd
15 May 2025

Social issues & processes; Ethical & social aspects of computing

Series: Digital Africa

Media coverage and scholarly research on digital surveillance has focused primarily on the USA and Europe. Everyone knows about Cambridge Analytica’s social media surveillance; Edward Snowden’s revelations of the West’s mass internet and phone surveillance; and Pegasus Spyware’s mobile phone surveillance of activists, journalists, judges, and presidents across the world. Comparatively little is known about the millions of dollars now being spent on digital technologies for use in the illegal and illegitimate surveillance of citizens in Africa.

In this open-access third volume of Bloomsbury’s Digital Africa series, a broad range of African and European scholars and practitioners map the development, procurement and (mis)use of the ever-expanding suite of digital surveillance and policing technologies across the continent. Drawing on the empirically rich, theoretically sophisticated research of the African Digital Rights Network, this book examines how public and private actors in Africa use spyware, mobile phone extraction, biometric and face recognition systems, and other technologies for smart-city and other social, and social-control, applications. Eight chapters examine eight African countries, and each of these begins with a thorough political history of the nature of surveillance there under colonial and post-liberation political settlements. This enables new analyses of the socio-cultural, political, and economic drivers and characteristics of contemporary digital surveillance in each country, all of which ultimately leads to concrete policy recommendations at local, national, and international levels.

For its empirical richness and breadth, as well as its theoretical sophistication, Digital Surveillance in Africa is essential reading for anyone interested in contemporary African studies, and it is of keen interest to anyone concerned with how digital surveillance affects everyday lives across the world.

The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com.

Edited by: Tony Roberts (Institute of Development Studies (IDS) UK), Admire Mare (University of Johannesburg, South Africa)
Imprint: Zed Books Ltd
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 156mm,
ISBN: 9781350422087
ISBN 10: 1350422088
Series: Digital Africa
Pages: 240
Publication Date: 15 May 2025
Audience: Professional and scholarly , College/higher education , Undergraduate , Primary
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Tony Roberts is a Digital Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, UK. His research focuses on digital rights, digital inequalities and participatory methodologies. He has worked at the intersection of digital technologies, development and social justice since 1988. Dr. Roberts is the principal investigator of the GCRF African Digital Rights Network and editor of the collected edition Digital Rights in Closing Civic Space: Lessons from Ten African Countries. Admire Mare is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication and Media at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. He was previously Deputy Head of the Communications department at the Namibian University of Science and Technology. His research focuses on participatory journalism, social media misinformation, and digital surveillance.

Reviews for Digital Surveillance in Africa: Power, Agency, and Rights

From colonial spy-systems to contemporary analyses of the ‘digital state’ and ‘safe-and-smart-cities,’ this book explores surveillance across six African countries. Often reliant on technology from China or Israel, new kinds of dependency emerge, along with fresh modes of resistance. Some salutary conclusions are reached, for those in both global south and global north. * David Lyon, Queen’s University, Canada *