Ephraim Percy Kenyanito

The U.S. cannot so easily ignore its responsibilities under international law and norms, or turn a blind eye to the activities of its corporations abroad.

Without warning, Kenyans learned last month that Safaricom, Kenya’s largest telecoms operator, had contracted with the government to provide a new communications and street-level surveillance system. The new system integrates 2,000 video surveillance cameras, video conferencing, digital radios, and a mapping system into a central command center. Worryingly, this contract likely entails many forms of street-level surveillance including license plate readers, facial recognition technology, and real-time tracking across major cities like Nairobi and Mombasa.

Over June 20-27, the AU Heads of State will be meeting where they’re expected to adopt a new Convention on Cyber Security and Personal Data Protection. While Access and other partners criticized an earlier draft of the Convention, the rewritten draft has yet to be released to the public, even as it races closer to adoption.

CWG-Internet has the mandate to identify, study, and develop matters related to specific international internet-related public policy issues [1]. An ongoing issue CWG-Internet has sought to address is the question of the role of governments in internet governance. This issue is at the core of a questionnaire sent to all ITU member states on behalf of CWG-Internet on November 22, 2013.

The questionnaire was intended to launch a consultation among governments on their role in the internet-related public policy issues covered in Resolution 1305, the results of which were discussed at its March session. Among the 193 ITU member states that received the questionnaire, 54 were African governments. Responses included specific examples of actions to address internet policy issues as well as opinions on the general nature of the role of governments in internet governance and of the 37 Member States that responded, six were from Africa: Botswana, Mauritius, Morocco, Rwanda, Sudan and Zambia.

Our previous analysis of African stakeholders’ contributions to the initial NetMundial open submission process found that stakeholders from Africa emphasized human rights and role of governments in matters of internet governance.

The internet affects every individual in this world whether directly or indirectly. For example, a medical professional somewhere in Goma, Congo might access the internet to read and post reviews to current medication available and this might have an impact on the kind of medication that he/she recommends to the patient, whether the patient has access to affordable internet or not. Since the internet affects everyone, Africans citizens who are aware of internet governance discussions, expect African stakeholders to engage in these discussions.