Uganda Deployed Huawei's Facial Recognition to Monitor Political Opposition and Protests

In 2019-2020, the Ugandan government implemented a comprehensive surveillance system supplied by Huawei, featuring facial recognition and other AI technologies, at a cost of at least $126 million. The system includes 83 monitoring centers, 522 operators, and 50 commanders, with plans to expand to 2,319 mapped countryside municipalities and major towns. During protests on November 18-19, 2020, triggered by the arrest of presidential candidates opposing President Yoweri Museveni's 34-year rule, the AI surveillance system was used to track down suspects, leading to over 836 arrests. The protests resulted in more than 50 deaths. Opposition politicians and activists had previously warned about potential abuse of the invasive surveillance system, fearing it would be used to suppress individual freedoms and monitor political opposition. The system has been used since 2019 to monitor political rallies and events of President Museveni's opponents. A Wall Street Journal investigation suggested the government used Huawei assistance to hack into messages of presidential candidate Robert Kyagulanyi (Bobi Wine), leading to his arrest and detention. The surveillance system operates without judicial oversight and includes pervasive location monitoring, facial recognition, biometric data collection, and blanket data retention practices.