Smart CCTV Networks Are Driving an AI-Powered Apartheid in South Africa

In one of the world’s most racially divided countries, a company called Vumacam is building a nationwide surveillance network that scrutinizes peoples' movements for “unusual behavior.”

Share: Share on X (Opens in new window) X Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook Share using Native tools Share Copied to clipboard Michael Kwet is a Visiting Fellow of the Information Society Project at Yale Law School. He is the author of Digital Colonialism: US Empire and the New Imperialism in the Global South , and hosts the Tech Empire podcast. “Beggars” and “vagrants” are not welcome in Parkhurst, South Africa, a mostly white, middle-class suburb of about 5,000 on the outskirts of Johannesburg’s inner city. Criminals are on the prowl, residents warn, and they threaten their ne

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