Who will protect us from tech intrusion?

The Communications Authority of Kenya indicates that Kenya has over 90 percent mobile penetration, and had 39.7 million mobile subscriptions at the end of June 2016. Google’s Consumer Barometer cites social media as the most popular activity by Kenyan smartphone users together with gambling and adult content websites. A report in Techweez on the State of the Internet in Kenya highlighted that the number of Facebook and Twitter users were approximately 6.1 million people and 2.2 million respectively.

Of these, Kenyans on Twitter have proven to be a strong group for articulating issues dealing with human rights, consumer rights, abuse of office among other issues. Social media, apart from being a medium of freedom of expression is largely being appreciated as a means of disruptive and non-disruptive political participation, articulation, assembly, petition and protest.

Weaponised social media

At the same time, social media can be used as a medium of expressing negative things. For instance, misogynists, racists, extremists, bullies and other bigoted groups have weaponised social media for purposes of rallying likeminded individuals and deploying them with devastating consequences. This has led to phenomena such as the rise of teenage suicides because of online bullying, hate crimes and harassment of women and other minorities.

Another downside of the digital age is that social media sites and other internet platforms are vulnerable to electronic surveillance and interception by governments and other actors thereby enabling repressive regimes to identify and clamp down on minorities, opposition members, journalists, bloggers and human rights defenders.

Many are not aware that the biggest tech companies like Facebook and Google have unique contracts and agreements with every government in which they operate regarding how they are to operate. Quite often, these contracts reflect the democratic and human rights attitudes of the country in question. The agreements between Facebook, Google and Twitter with countries like Kenya, USA, Somalia and Saudi Arabia are fundamentally different. As such, respect to freedom of expression and privacy differs.

It is now apparent that new technologies are being developed and purchased by governments, ostensibly for surveillance purposes. Such surveillance threatens human dignity and autonomy and the right to privacy, freedom of expression and association. It also inhibits the free functioning of a vibrant civil society.

Increasingly, corporations such as Google and Facebook have come into focus on how they use the information they have been collecting about us. Every time you search a phrase, click a link, share a post, visit a website, watch a video, or do anything else online, they are taking note and saving that information for later.

Furthermore, depending on the applications you have in your devices, you can be tracked at any time, not just when you are using the application. Google records each place you travel to, how often you go there and how much time you spend there.

No place to hide

Your mobile service provider and some apps in your phone keep data on who you call, how long you talk to them, how often you call them, who you send money and your location. These apps could be switching on your microphone or even taking photos without your knowledge. Facebook, which also owns Instagram, on the other hand, even has facial recognition technology which means that it can identify you in all photos in their platform.

All data about your browsing history, your interests, your locations, spending habits and associations are very intimate and when put together or analyzed, can reveal so much - a very accurate snapshot of who you are and your very essence. Now, imagine that all this data is sold to advertisers.

The world is only now becoming aware of the bad practices and gaps with regard storage and use personal data. This came to the fore when it was revealed that Cambridge Analytica used Facebook to identify and target potential voters in the USA to influence the election. At the same time, it was revealed that Russian operatives were also using Facebook accounts to target American voters based on their race, religion or other identifiers to influence the same election. The worlds largest economy was being interfered with by corporations and foreign operatives using a platform that was invented by its own citizens.

Going forward, online users, governments and tech companies need to be proactively sensitized on these issues in order to come up with practical Data Protection and Cybercrime laws that take into consideration rights, their nature, and responsibilities of all players.

Mr Kiprono is a Human Rights Lawyer [email protected]