Call to Action: Challenging Mass Surveillance

The Media Policy and Democracy Project (MPDP) and the Right2Know Campaign invite you to an afternoon strategy discussion to bring together activists, unionists, human rights lawyers, students and academics to confront communications surveillance issues in South Africa.

Recent years have seen a range of scandals and revelations about abuses of surveillance in South Africa, including communications surveillance, and the threat these pose to journalists and political activists. (For more see R2K's “Big Brother Exposed” handbook on surveillance of activists at bigbrother.r2k.org.za)

But not enough has been done to challenge mass surveillance – that is, the bulk collection and storage of information from our electronic communication. There is growing evidence that the South African government has mass surveillance capabilities, and may well be exploiting legal loopholes in the Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of Communication-related Information Act (RICA) in order to use them.

Also, not enough is being done to challenge the provisions in RICA that do not conform to human rights standards, which means that many aspects of targeted interception are problematic, and need to be reviewed.

Forthcoming research by the MPDP adds depth to our understanding of the threats that these under-regulated surveillance capabilities post to constitutional rights in South Africa.

This meeting will allow MPDP and R2K to introduce the research and highlight its main findings, so that those who stand to be most affected by these problems can discuss them and develop a common strategy.

Details

Cape Town: 2.30pm to 5pm, Monday 14 March (Community House, Salt River)

Johannesburg: 2.30pm to 5pm, Thursday 17 March (Socio Economic Rights Institute, Braamfontein)

Please RSVP by 10 March here.

For further information or queries please contact Jane Duncan: jduncan@uj.ac.za or 0827863600