Huawei smart city technologies deployed in Uganda
Information Certainty: Documented
Deployment Purpose: Surveillance
| Summary |
|---|
| Since 2014, Uganda has contracted Huawei to install CCTV cameras around the country. The network has facial recognition and feeds back to a number of fusion centers. The regime has a poor record of abuse of surveillance technologies, for example an investigation in 2019 carried out by the Wall Street Journal found that Huawei employees had assisted surveillance efforts against political opponents. Huawei denied culpability for these efforts. The decision to sell surveillance technologies to Uganda itself has been criticised by civil society groups due to Uganda's record, for example in 2010 Uganda used spyware on public WiFi. The government has also openly admitted to using the CCTV network to trace the identity of protestors who were protesting against the regime. In 2022 the cameras are still in operation, with the exact number estimated at 5,000. |
Products and Institutions:
| Product Deployed | Safe City Software by Huawei |
|---|---|
| Institutions ⠉ | |
| Datasets | Huawei (Dataset) |
| Search software |
Status and Events:
| Status | Ongoing |
|---|---|
| Events | Start (2 January 2014, Speculative, , When first contracted with Huawei for cameras) |
| Start Date | |
| End Date |
Users:
| Involved Entities | |
|---|---|
| Managed by | Government of Uganda |
| Used by | Uganda Police Force |
Location:
| City | Kampala |
|---|---|
| Country ⠉ | Uganda |
Description[ ]
Since 2014, Huawei has been contracted to install CCTV cameras around Uganda, including on motorways. The cameras use facial recognition technologies. The introduction of these technologies to Uganda has been regarded as dubious because of the regimes poor record in regard to surveillance. The number of cameras in 2022 is estimated to be 5,000.
By supplying facial recognition cameras to a regime that is known to use technology as a means of quelling dissent, Huawei can undoubtedly be accused of putting Ugandan citizens at greater risk from the effects of digital authoritarianism. Such accusations have been encouraged by allegations of more direct collusion between Huawei and the Ugandan regime 3
The first cameras went up around 2014 when Chinese telecommunications behemoth Huawei donated 20 units worth $750,000 to the Ugandan government. When police spokesperson Andrew Felix Kaweesi was shot dead outside his house in a Kampala suburb in 2017, the government accelerated its surveillance plans. In 2018, authorities in Kampala signed a ‘safe city’ project with Huawei worth $126m. Today about 5,000 CCTV cameras keep an eye on movements across Ugandan roads, part of a ‘smart cities’ project pushed by Huawei across many countries. Footage from the cameras flow through a network of dedicated fibre-optic cables to 11 monitoring centres, and into a $30 million data hub at the police headquarters in Kampala. Equipped with facial-recognition technology, the CCTV project is meant to improve safety by giving the police the tools to identify and solve crime 1
In 2019, an investigation by the Wall Street Journal found that Huawei officials had assisted surveillance activities of the government in 2018.
In Kampala, Uganda, last year, a group of six intelligence officers struggled to contain a threat to the 33-year regime of President Yoweri Museveni, according to Ugandan senior security officials. A pop star turned political sensation, Bobi Wine, had returned from Washington with U.S. backing for his opposition movement, and Uganda's cyber-surveillance unit had strict orders to intercept his encrypted communications, using the broad powers of a 2010 law that gives the government the ability "to secure its multidimensional interests." According to these officials, the team, based on the third floor of the capital's police headquarters, spent days trying to penetrate Mr. Wine's WhatsApp and Skype communications using spyware, but failed. Then they asked for help from the staff working in their offices from Huawei, Uganda's top digital supplier. "The Huawei technicians worked for two days and helped us puncture through," said one senior officer at the surveillance unit. The Huawei engineers, identified by name in internal police documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, used the spyware to penetrate Mr. Wine's WhatsApp chat group, named Firebase crew after his band. Authorities scuppered his plans to organize street rallies and arrested the politician and dozens of his supporters [[CiteRef::chinHuaweiTechniciansHelped2019a]
The camera network has also been used to identify protestors.
Ugandan police officials have confirmed they are using the cameras supplied by Huawei which helped the force track down some of the more than 836 suspects they have arrested 4
References
- ^ x
- ^ Woodhams, Samuel. China, Africa, and the Private Surveillance Industry. , 2020.
- ^ "Across East Africa, Big Brother is watching your every move". (2022) <https://www.monitor.co.ug/uganda/news/national/across-east-africa-big-brother-is-watching-your-every-move-4041896> Accessed: 2022-12-15
- ^ "Uganda is using Huawei's facial recognition tech to crack down on dissent after protests". (2020) <https://qz.com/africa/1938976/uganda-uses-chinas-huawei-facial-recognition-to-snare-protesters/> Accessed: 2022-12-15