Jane Mlambo| Government of Zimbabwe has reportedly engaged a Chinese company to set up surveillance technology in the country.
The move which according to the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) seeks to promote safety in public spaces and roads is not new and would not be unique to Zimbabwe with South Africa, United Kingdom and the rest of the western world already using it.
According to MISA, unlike South Africa, the United States, and the United Kingdom, Zimbabwe does not have an adequate data protection regime to ensure that the massive data collected by the proposed surveillance programme is not abused or misused.
“China is an example of how surveillance technology can be used to suppress people’s fundamental rights.
“Such suppression is possible because China does not adhere to any human rights-based data protection principles.
“The Chinese government is, therefore, free to use the data it collects in any way,” noted MISA.
“The problem with Chinese sourced technology is the use of “backdoors.” In technology, a backdoor refers to an entry point intentionally built into a system or application that allows another party other than the user, to gain access to that system without the user’s knowledge or consent.
“Chinese sourced equipment donated to the African Union for use in its Addis Ababa headquarters in Ethiopia had backdoors. China reportedly exploited these backdoors to clandestinely collect information thus effectively spying on the activities of the African Union.
“Chinese manufactured brands such as ZTEand Huawei are also suspected of using backdoors.
“The research found that Xiaomi’s smartphones designed for overseas markets were automatically connecting to an Internet Protocol address in Beijing and that all documents, SMS and phone logs, and video files downloaded on their smartphones were sent to a Beijing server,” added MISA.
The media advocacy group further noted that in the absence of an adequate data protection regime, the Zimbabwe government would do well to choose its Chinese technological partners wisely to avoid surreptitious leaking of Zimbabwean data to China.
MISA appealed to government to ensure that these initiatives are accompanied by a corresponding and necessary introduction of laws that protect people from excessive surveillance and excessive data processing.